


Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

by whichclothes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-04
Updated: 2010-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:17:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 45,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 1 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

  
____spacer____

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (1/12)**   
_

**  
_  
Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento  
_   
**

**  
One  
**

 

The Andersons had been in their early seventies when they were squashed between two semis on Highway 99, just south of Lodi. Now, delighted with their restored libidos, they spent a lot of time having very loud sex. Nobody could really blame them for that since the couple was likeable enough otherwise. Actually, everyone envied the Andersons because they were the only couple on the island; everyone else was waiting alone. When Bev and Art weren’t screwing they were gardening, so the front of their little house was a riot of color and the back was a sort of cross between an English cottage garden and the Brazilian rainforest. They grew fruits and vegetables, too, which they shared freely and which tasted amazing—even the zucchini and the Brussels sprouts.

The Andersons were waiting for their son Michael, who had Down’s Syndrome. He lived in an assisted living apartment and worked at a fast food restaurant and he was the center of their universe. One afternoon as they were admiring a purple and white clematis, Marianne Dhillon asked Bev whether she thought Michael would be cured of his disability when he arrived. Bev smiled and shook her head. “Then he wouldn’t be our Michael, would he?”

Marianne had been felled in a salmonella outbreak. Contaminated eggs. She was waiting for her husband Steve who, due to high cholesterol, never ate eggs himself.

Everyone on the island was waiting for someone. Vern Hastings (stroke), Sam McIntyre (heart attack), and Jose Gutierrez (prostate cancer) were all waiting for their wives. Kat Adams (heroin OD) was waiting for her sister, and Giulia Lombardi (allergic reaction to a bee sting) was waiting for her girlfriend. Scott Acker (armed robbery) was waiting for his beloved golden retriever-German shepherd mix, which Xander thought was very sweet.

Xander didn’t know who he was waiting for.

There were people he’d loved, but some of them had gone on before him. And the rest he loved in a fraternal manner, which was fine, but not in an I-need-you-to-feel-complete sort of way. He’d been divorced ten years and he certainly wasn’t waiting for his ex, Constance (who’d been anything but). And he'd never had a pet.

He hadn't anticipated this. He knew not to expect white gowns and fluffy clouds and harps, not after Buffy had described her trip to the afterlife all those years ago. But then this place probably wasn’t heaven anyway; more likely a sort of way station. A layover, like spending three hours at O’Hare in between Oakland and Boston.

He didn’t know why he’d ended up on this particular island, with this particular small collection of people. He supposed the ocean was full of islands like this one. But when he’d tried to swim away, to find out if maybe there was something there beyond the horizon, he’d kicked and kicked through chilly water until his arms and legs felt like concrete blocks and he’d started to sink. Yet when he woke up, he found himself beached on the rough rocks of his own familiar island.

You can’t drown if you’re already dead.

Anyway, this island wasn’t bad. The weather was always perfect—not too warm during the day, cool and rainy at night. Everyone had a nice little cottage. Xander’s had worn white clapboard on the outside and a green-gray tile roof. He had a tiny porch with a rocking chair, where he liked to sit and watch the waves. Inside, his single bedroom cottage had a twin-size bed with a thick mattress and colorful quilts, a small bathroom with really good water pressure (but no toilet because, apparently, one did not excrete in the afterlife), and a cozy living room with a wood-burning fireplace and an old fashioned flat-screen TV on which he could tune in old sitcoms and sci-fi shows. He had a kitchen too, of course, and at first he’d been upset because there was no microwave or dishwasher. For weeks, he’d eaten nothing but cereal and sandwiches. But he’d finally come to enjoy the time spent cooking his meals and then washing up afterwards, and the way his mind wandered as he did those small labors.

Food just appeared in his cupboards and fridge. Nothing fancy, and no pizzas or take-out Thai, but really good bread he had to slice himself, and meat and cheese and—oh, glory be!—the best beer he’d ever tasted. And he had those ethereal fruits and veggies from the Andersons. There was ice cream, too, the old-fashioned kind with lots of fat, and sometimes chocolate chip cookies or popcorn or ranch potato chips.

So Xander cooked and cleaned, and he watched _SG-1_ , and he sat and watched the sea, and he had short bland chats with the neighbors, and he walked the island’s two-mile perimeter, and sometimes something small in his house or someone else’s needed repairs so he’d fix it. It wasn’t an exciting existence, but it wasn’t awful.

It sure beat dying slowly of renal failure.

 

***

 

“Xander? That shutter on my bedroom window is creaking again. Think you could come fix it up?”

Xander hauled himself out of his rocking chair. “Sure, Vern. Let me grab my tools.” He ducked inside and grabbed his gray metal toolbox. It was identical to the one he’d had on his very first job, all the way down to the “X. Harris” scrawled in Sharpie on the lid and the small crack in the yellow plastic handle. He’d lost the original when Sunnydale went _boom_ , and now sometimes he wondered whether this was a replica or the very same one. Maybe it had been here on its own layover for thirty years, waiting for him.

Vern was tall and thin and balding. He always wore thick glasses and polyester trousers and short-sleeved button-down shirts. He looked mid-fiftyish, which was a good decade-and-a-half younger than he’d been when he died. Xander wondered sometimes why the guy didn’t look like he was in his twenties the way the rest of them did, why his myopia hadn’t been cured the way Xander’s long-lost eye had been restored, but Xander never asked Vern these questions. And anyway, Vern seemed content waiting for his Eileen, spending his days with his nose buried in economics journals.

“That was a good storm last night,” Vern said as they walked down the row of cottages. Xander’s was at one end, Vern’s at the other. Vern’s was painted pale yellow and there were white window boxes full of geraniums in front and an old Schwinn leaning beside the door.

“Yeah,” Xander agreed. “Pretty windy. Probably that’s why your shutter’s loose.”

“Yep.”

They were silent after that, their feet padding softly on the packed sand path. Xander’s feet were bare, but Vern wore Birkenstocks with gray socks. A bird called overhead. Not a gull; something bigger and dark and vaguely prehistoric-looking.

Two of the screws on Vern’s shutter had pulled out of the wood and the shutter was hanging a little crookedly, catching the slight breeze. Xander drilled new holes and moved the hinge up a bit, then refastened it to the house. It took him less than twenty minutes, and while he worked, he sipped one of Vern’s cold beers.

“There you go,” Xander said, hefting his tool box in one hand. “Good as new.”

“Thanks.”

“No prob. Happy to help.” And he was, because being helpful felt good and it gave him something to do. With a final small wave, he walked away from Vern and started back towards his own place. But he’d walked only a short bit of the path when he set the tools down and turned around, heading beyond the row of houses, towards the shore. There were beaches everywhere, of course, but he liked this one best. There was a secluded little cove edged with rounded gravel, where he liked to watch the otters that sometimes came to play in the floating kelp.

He was sitting on his favorite chunk of driftwood, the one that curved to fit his ass just right, when feet crunched on the gravel behind him. Surprised, he turned around. He’d never seen anyone else on this beach before, and he felt kind of proprietary about it. He was even more surprised when he saw who was approaching him: a stranger.

In Xander’s time on the island—however long that time had been—only one resident had been reunited with a loved one. That was Tommy Lange, who’d run his Harley and himself head-on into a tree, and it was his mother who’d met him. She came walking up the path one afternoon while Tommy was listening to a Raiders game on the radio, and they’d cried and embraced and then disappeared. A few days later, Giulia had appeared.

As the person approached him now, though, Xander realized he _knew_ her. “Dawnie!” he gasped and fell off the driftwood.

Dawn giggled. She looked like she had at fourteen, all gawky arms and legs. She loped across the gravel and helped him to his feet. “Still not so much with the suave, are we?” she asked.

“Dawnie! God! What happened?”

She looked puzzled for a moment, and then rolled her eyes. “I’m not dead, Xan. At least, not last I checked.”

“But…but….”

She hugged him close. She smelled of strawberry lip gloss, just as when she was a teen. “It’s so good to see you again. I’ve missed you. We all have.” She pulled away a little and looked up into his eyes. “But I don’t have very much time, ‘kay? We need to talk.”

“But…what…?” His head was spinning and he couldn’t possibly manage a coherent sentence.

She took his hand and tugged him the few feet back to his driftwood, then sat next to him. She reached over and stroked his cheek. “You’re so young! I forgot. And I forgot how it feels, too.” She gave her body a little wiggle. “Fab!”

“Dawnie, please—”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a sec to enjoy.” She let out a big sigh. “Here’s the thing. Willow sent me here.”

“Wills? Is she—”

“Nope, she’s still kicking too. But she got this vision thing—she gets those sometimes nowadays, right? It’s like a catastrophe early warning system. This was a biggie, all gloom and doom. And it’s about you, sort of, but she can’t send herself so she sent me to bring you a message.”

“Gloom and doom? I’m _dead_. Doesn’t that pretty much mean my gloom and doom days are done?”

She punched his bicep hard enough to hurt. “Dope! It’s not _your_ gloom and doom. It’s all the alive people. And all the people who aren’t alive yet but will be someday, if the world doesn’t end first.”

“Another apocalypse?” That he understood. It had been a few years, but he knew this stuff well enough.

“Yeah. There’s these nasty demony types—”

“There are always nasty demony types, Dawnie.”

“This batch has magics, so they’re nasty wizardy demony types. And they’re fooling around with timelines.”

Okay, now he was lost again. “Huh?”

“They’re…I don’t know. Changing the past, so stuff that did happen doesn’t. It’s all…twisty paradoxy.” She wiggled her fingers together, he supposed by way of illustration.

Xander rubbed at his left cheekbone: a habit he’d picked up after he’d lost his eye, and dying and becoming binocular again hadn’t cured him of it. “Okay. So evil guys are mucking with the past. What does that have to do with me?”

She shrugged. “You have to go back and stop them.”

He blinked for a few moments. “Okay. Let’s assume time-travel is possible, ‘cause I guess if Willow can get you here she could manage that. Again, why me? Dead here.”

“I know,” she said sadly, then perked up a little. “But that’s why you can help—Willow says living people can’t go back in time.”

That made some sort of sense, he guessed. “But there’s a lot of other dead people, Dawn, many of whom are better qualified with the world saveage. Buffy, for example. Giles. Faith. Hell, even Angel!”

“They’ve moved on, though. They’re too hard to.… We can’t pull them out, at least not without major issues. They’ve been there a while.”

He nodded unhappily. Twenty years, almost, for most of them. “Okay, so I’m your dead guy of the hour. What do I have to avert?”

She scrunched up her face like she was about to get a painful injection. “You have to kill Spike.”

 

***

 

Getting drunk seemed to be an impossibility in this place. But Xander figured a little alcohol would help anyway, so he took Dawn back to his place, retrieving his tools as they went. They passed Bev Anderson in her front yard, busily pruning roses, and after a triple take she gave Xander a warm smile. “Is this…?” she asked.

“Oh, no. Just a visitor.”

She gaped at them as they continued on their way.

Dawn liked his house. She bounced up and down appreciatively on his couch and admired his views—ocean out every single window—and sipped at the bottle of Cherry Coke that he found in his fridge. And then she talked, very fast because she had to return soon. Xander stood leaning against one wall, drinking his beer and listening.

“So it’s pretty simple, in a semi-diabolical way,” she explained. “The bad guys are going to go back and make sure that Drusilla never killed Spike. If she doesn’t kill him, he doesn’t get to be a vampire, and then I guess he dies of something else, like, a while later.”

“And that’s bad because?” Xander asked, thinking of all the thousands of people who would stay alive if that happened.

“Because if Spike’s long gone by the twenty-first century, then there’s nobody to back Buff up when she needed it, right before all the doo-doo hit the fan; and there’s nobody to be all unhuman champion and wear that fugly necklace and then—”

“Angel could have worn it.”

She shook her head. “My sources say no. Wouldn’t have worked. It had to be Spike.”

“Fine. Fine, no Spike, no jewelry wearing. But—”

“We would have lost, Xan. We would have lost and then….” She spread her arms out, palms up. “Game over.”

He turned away from her and walked to the window, gazing out at blue sky and bluer ocean. Would it have been so bad if they had lost? Here he was, dead, and it wasn’t so awful. And Buffy and Giles and Anya and so many others, they were dead now too. So what difference did it make that they’d saved the world? Except there were those decades afterwards, before he got sick. There had been some good times then. Really good. There was Willow’s son, Jason, who would never have been born—he was a good kid, funny, and so smart: graduated high school at fifteen and got a full ride at Stanford. Dawn’s kids were great, too; they called him Uncle Xander and they all got together on holidays, _real_ family holidays, the way the TV said they were supposed to be, without shouting and dish-throwing.

And there were all the tiny happinesses that people collected, like paying off a car or eating cotton candy at a fair or getting a surprise package from someone. Like laughing in the middle of sex and neither of you minding, and snow days, and getting two bags of chips from a vending machine instead of one, and little kids who couldn’t pronounce “spaghetti,” and getting an unexpected bargain, and lightning bugs and shooting stars and stupid puns.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, still not looking at her.

“I give you a magic word. You say it and you get zapped back to horse-and-buggy London. You stick around long enough to make sure Dru does her thing, then you say the word and you’re back here. All’s well.”

Now he did turn around. “I'm back here, still waiting? Dawn, who am I waiting for? Everybody else knows their _who_. But me…? No idea.”

She stood and walked over, embracing him again. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

He sniffed at her hair—Herbal Essences shampoo—and sighed. “What’s the word?”

[Chapter Two](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/219135.html)

 


	2. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 2 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (2/12)**   
_

**  
Two  
**

 

Xander staggered. He took in a huge, whooping breath then choked it back out again, coughing so hard he almost fell over. Gasping, he stood up straight and tried to focus his stinging eyes—just in time to lurch out of the way of a horse and carriage. His feet got soaked to the ankles in a reeking gutter, and someone shouted something incomprehensible at him that was probably not very nice. He leaned back against a brick wall and tried to catch his breath and get his bearings.

He was on a busy street where some people dashed in and out among the carriages, and other people hurried along the sidewalk with their heads down against the drizzle. Xander thought it was still daylight, but he had no idea of the time because the sky was a sickly yellowish-gray with the sun nowhere in sight. The buildings were black with soot and they loomed three or four stories above him. The sounds were dizzying: the clip-clop of hooves, the squeaking of wheels, the shouts of hawkers selling God-only-knew-what, the hum of a thousand loud conversations.

Some of the passersby gave him very strange looks, which was no wonder. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans, a faded red t-shirt, a brown jacket, and Reeboks, while they were all wearing what looked to him like twenty layers of clothing. And either all these women had freakishly enormous asses or else bustles were in fashion. Everyone had hats; well, everyone except Xander.

Xander’s entire knowledge of the Victorian era came from _A Christmas Carol_. He liked the Patrick Stewart version best, although the Muppets one was good too. But this was the real deal now, and there were no Scrooges or Tiny Tims to be found haunting the city. Instead, there was a still-human William Pratt; and presumably a soul-free Angelus; that bitch Darla; and Angelus's lunatic vampire offspring, Drusilla. Good times.

Dawn—and by extension, Willow—had been able to give him only very basic info. He knew he was close to the date when William got Spiked, but he didn’t know how close. Could be days, could be weeks or longer. He knew William’s address, but not where that was in relation to wherever it was he’d landed, and he was guessing MapQuest and GPS were out of the question. He knew he was supposed to keep his mouth shut and avoid screwing up the timeline more than necessary. So no betting on stuff he already knew the outcome of—which was no problem, because he had no clue what had happened in 1880—and no expounding to the natives on the joys of the Internet, Taco Bell, or the internal combustion engine. He knew that telling William anything about who he really was would be very, very bad, like end-of-the-world bad. His clothes were wrong, his accent was wrong, and he didn’t have a shilling to his name.

Xander pushed away from the brick wall and positioned himself in front of a pair of middle-aged ladies walking arm in arm. “Excuse me—” he began, but they looked at him the way he’d once looked at Fyarl demons and they hurried around him. He tried again, this time with an older man sporting a bushy gray beard. “Could you please—”

“I’ll have none of your nonsense,” the man said. “Move off before I call the police.” And he brandished his walking stick. Xander moved away.

A younger man came along next, with a blond mustache and no beard and carrying something bulky and fabric-wrapped under one arm. “Excuse me?” Xander tried again.

The man stopped, gave Xander a long, skeptical look, and lifted his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Could you tell me how to get to Great Russell Street?”

The man hesitated, then gave a little shrug. “Of course. Go straight until you come to Theobalds Road and then turn right. Turn right again at Southampton Row, and then Great Russell Street will be to the left.”

“Thanks.” That didn’t sound too complicated. He hoped.

“But Good Lord, man, _what_ is that you have on your feet?”

Xander looked down at his shoes, which were blue and gray with a bumpy green sole. “Um…running shoes. They’re the latest fashion back home.” Which wasn’t true, because he’d last owned shoes like this circa 2010, a good two decades before he kicked the bucket. But they’d been his favorites for a long time and he’d been delighted to find them in his closet on the island.

“And where is home, pray tell? The moon?” the man asked.

Xander grinned. “Nope. Just California.”

The man shook his head slowly and Xander went on his way: right, then right, then left.

Despite the simple-seeming directions, he managed to get slightly lost, but a little bit of circling (and two additional near run-ins with carriages) found his soggy feet planted firmly along Great Russell Street. After that, it took him only five more minutes to find number 43. Number 43 was a narrow building of some indeterminate color of brick. It had white pillars in front of the first floor; three plain, flat stories over that, each with three identical windows; and then an angled grayish roof with three dormer windows. It was very ordinary. It didn’t look like the home of the soon-to-be William the Bloody.

But now that Xander had found the house, he wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t just hang around indefinitely, hoping to shove William into Drusilla’s fangs. But he had nowhere to go. So what was he supposed to do? Knock on the front door and say, “Hey! I’m your dead frenemy from the future and I’m here to make sure you get drained by a vampire so the world doesn’t go boom.” Yeah. That would go over well. They had loony bins in this place and, if he wasn’t mistaken, they were not very pleasant places to while away one’s time.

He tucked himself up against a building across the street, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, and simply watched for a while. Nothing happened at number 43. The windows were all covered by heavy draperies and he couldn’t even tell whether anyone was home.

It wasn’t too long before Xander began to shiver in the cold mist. His lungs and eyes were feeling scratchy and hot, and his bladder took the opportunity to remind him that he once again had to worry about excretion. Oh, god. There was no indoor plumbing yet, was there?

He supposed he could hang around a while more, but he was fairly certain no brilliant plan was going to come to him. Strategizing had never been his strongpoint. With a sigh, he pushed away from the building, straightened his shoulders, and marched across the street. The door to number 43 had a large brass knocker. Xander banged it a lot more confidently than he felt.

After a few moments, the door swung inward. A girl in maybe her late teens stood there, gawping at him. She wore a plain cotton dress with a white apron over it, and her hair was tucked under a cap. The tip of her pointed nose was red and inflamed-looking, like maybe she had a cold. “Yes?” she said, giving him a look twice as skeptical as the man who’d given him directions.

“Uh, hi. I’m here to see Spi—um, William Pratt.”

She blinked at him. “And who are you, sir?”

“Oh. Sorry. My name’s Xander Harris.”

She lifted both pale eyebrows, as if his name was the strangest thing about him. “’Ave you a card?” she finally asked.

“Huh?”

“A calling card, sir.” She was clearly about a half-step away from calling for the bobbies.

“Er…no. Sorry.” Inspiration struck. “We don’t use them in the USA, you know. I’m American,” he added, unnecessarily.

From the look she gave him, he might as well have admitted to being an ax murderer. But she opened the door wider and waved him inside. “I’ll see if ‘e’s engaged.” She shut and locked the door, then added, “Wait ‘ere. Sir.”

After she’d scurried away, Xander looked curiously around himself. He was in a small foyer. The floor was white tile, the walls were covered in flowery wallpaper, and there was a coatrack in one corner and, next to it, an umbrella stand that looked like an elephant’s foot. Against one wall, a wooden display case had three shelves crammed with little blue and white porcelain dishes; and a low table held a painted vase, a crystal candy dish, and a gilded statue of a cherub. Xander stayed very still, afraid he might knock something over.

 

***

 

Xander had heard years and years ago from Willow that Spike had survived Sunnydale and had ended up in LA with Angel. Somehow—Xander was never quite clear how—Angel got turned human again at some point, and then died once and for all a few years later in a fight with some demons. Xander hadn’t heard anything about Spike after that, and only when he was feeling nostalgic did he wonder what had become of the bleached menace. Xander assumed he wasn’t dust yet—Spike was like a cockroach that way, likely to be one of the few around after nuclear Armageddon.

And then Buffy died.

She’d reached a ripe old age for a Slayer—almost 40—and Xander knew that she’d gone on to someplace better. But still he grieved for his old friend. He had been living in North Carolina at the time, having mostly given up on the old demon biz. His marriage to Constance had fallen apart less than a year earlier, he had recently started his own construction firm, and he’d just begun dating again. Men mostly, because while he fully appreciated women, he found himself yearning for larger, harder bodies. And cocks. He appreciated those, too. And then Buffy had been a little slow with the sword one day and she was gone.

Xander flew to California for the funeral. She’d requested cremation, and her ashes were interred in a small cemetery. Dawn and her husband had a headstone made for Buffy, set next to the marker made in Joyce’s memory.

They’d all spent some time together for a few days—it had been a bittersweet reunion—and then Xander had to return home, to get back to work. The evening before his early morning flight, he visited the cemetery again to say a final goodbye. As he stood stroking the smooth granite, he heard footsteps behind him. In an old habit he hadn’t shed, Xander spun around, reaching into his back pocket for his ever-present stake.

And there was Spike.

He looked as young as always but his hair was, Xander presumed, its natural color and it was cut short. His duster and Docs were gone; instead, he wore faded blue jeans and a plain white button-down. He held a bouquet of lilies in one hand.

“Harris,” he said, stopping well out of staking range.

“What are you doing here?” Xander demanded.

Spike jerked his chin at Buffy’s headstone. “Paying my respects.” He seemed defensive about it, as if he expected Xander to try and chase him away.

But Xander didn’t have the energy for it, and besides, he figured Spike had as much a right to mourn as he did. Spike had loved her too. So Xander just stepped slightly aside.

Spike blinked at him in surprise, then straightened his shoulders in that old familiar way and sauntered over. He knelt, set the flowers down on the ground, and spent a few minutes with his head bowed. He stood again and pulled a lighter and a box of cigarettes from his pocket. “You mind?” he asked, waving one cigarette in Xander’s direction.

Xander was slightly taken aback by the small courtesy. “Knock yourself out,” he said with a small shrug.

Spike nodded and lit his cigarette. They stood side by side for a while, silent but strangely comfortable.

“You’ve mellowed,” Spike finally said.

“Guess so. You too, huh?”

Spike chuckled. “I have my moments.” He dropped his cigarette butt, ground it out under one heel and then, to Xander’s astonishment, stuck it in his pocket.

“You could have left it there,” Xander said. “It’d be like the old days, when you were all stalkery outside her house.”

Spike snorted. Xander expected him to go away then, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved around until he was leaning back against somebody else’s stone, facing Xander. “You’re all grown up,” Spike said.

“I am slipping into middle age as gracefully as possible.”

“You look fit. Confident. You’ve made a life for yourself, I reckon.”

Although Xander was surprised by the compliments, he still registered the slight wistfulness in Spike’s voice.

“Yeah,” Xander responded. “I’m okay. Divorced. Bi. Childless. Mortgaged. But my truck’s paid off and I haven’t lost any major body parts in decades, so I’m good.” And then, because Spike had actually been decent, he added, “You?”

It was Spike’s turn to shrug. “Still dead.”

“Still with the soul, I take it?”

A curt nod.

Xander frowned. “How do you stay fed?”

“I manage. Work in demon bars, play billiards or cards, that sort of thing.”

“Oh. Do you….” Xander stopped, not sure how to phrase this. “Who are you hanging out with, nowadays?”

Spike gave him a strange look, then turned his face away. He didn’t answer, and Xander understood and felt a stab of sympathy. Sympathy for Spike. Wow.

After a few awkward moments, Spike hauled himself off the headstone. “’T’s good to see you again, Xander Harris,” he said in a small voice. “Good to know the demons never got you.”

“Thanks. Um…likewise. Look, I have a six a.m. out of LAX. But if you’re ever in Greensboro, come look me up.”

“Yeah. All right.”

Xander started walking away, but Spike didn’t move. When Xander walked past him, Spike said, “Xander?”

Xander stopped and turned back. “Yeah?”

Spike’s shoulders slumped and he looked down at the ground. “Nothing. Have a good life.”

“Thanks,” Xander said. He turned around and again headed for the cemetery gate. Halfway there he stopped, thinking maybe he could invite Spike to have a drink or something. Xander could sleep on the plane. But when he looked back at Buffy’s grave, Spike was gone.

 

***

 

He heard the footsteps first, and then Spike came into view. No, _William_ , Xander reminded himself. William wore a light brown three-piece suit with a white shirt and thin black tie. His hair was golden brown and slightly messy, as if he’d been running his hands through it. One of those hands was clutching a pen and the other a small sheaf of papers. A pair of thin-rimmed glasses were perched on his nose, which had a small smudge of blue ink at the very tip. Xander bit his lip to suppress a giggle.

“What rhymes with ‘ruminate?’” William asked without really looking up from his papers. “I’ve ‘illuminate’ already, but it’s _terza rima_ , you see, and….” His voice died out as he squinted thoughtfully.

“Lubricate,” Xander said. “Um, or maybe fumigate.”

William finally looked at him. He stared frankly for a few moments and then shook his head as if to clear it. “Pardon me. I’ve quite forgotten my manners.” He looked around as if he wasn’t sure where to put the papers, then set them on the little table, tucked between the cherub and the candy dish. He stuck his pen behind one ear and then held out his hand. “William Pratt.”

Xander took the hand; it was warm and smooth. “Xander Harris,” he said, and gave it a few firm shakes.

William frowned at him, clearly at a loss about what to do with him, and then gave a tiny shrug. “Please, come into the parlor. I’ll have Maggie fetch us some tea.”

Tea. Not exactly what his bladder needed now. But Xander was trying to be polite, so he waited for William to collect his papers and then followed him down a short hall and into a room decorated in Fussy. William gestured him towards a really uncomfortable chair with green upholstery, then disappeared again, presumably to go find Maggie.

Xander surveyed the room, but there was so much stuff crammed into the space it was hard to focus on any one thing, so he gave up and gazed into the fire instead. It crackled cheerfully, and more of those little blue and white dishes were arrayed on the mantel.

William returned and sat down opposite Xander. His left hand was ink-stained, too, Xander saw, and there was even a little ink on the part of his shirt cuff that stuck out from his coat sleeve. “Mag will bring the tea directly. Unless you’d fancy something stronger?”

“No. Tea’s good, thanks.”

There was a brief, awkward pause. William seemed to be too polite to ask Xander what the hell he wanted, and Xander still didn’t have the faintest idea what to say to the vampire-to-be. At long last, William cleared his throat. “Horrid weather we’re having.”

“Um, yeah. It’s cold. And wet.” And this was certainly the world’s lamest conversation.

“I’ll wager the weather’s a good sight better where you’re from. In America,” William added helpfully.

“Yes! Yes it is!” Xander was ridiculously grateful to have something to say. “I grew up in SoCal, where it’s always warm and sunny, and—”

“SoCal?”

“Southern California.”

William looked delighted. “California? Really? And you were actually born there?”

“Yep.”

“Have you actual Red Indians there? And Chinamen? And those ruffians…the outlaws, yes?”

“Um, sure. We have those.”

William’s eyes narrowed. “ _You’re_ not an outlaw, are you?”

“No! Definitely a law-abiding citizen here. A white hat.” The puzzled look Xander received in return told him that William had no clue what he meant. But at least William’s suspicions seemed momentarily lifted and when Maggie entered the room just then with a small wheeled cart, William waved her impatiently away.

“Milk or sugar?” William asked, pouring into a china cup.

“No, thanks. Straight up’s good.” The cup felt very small and delicate in his hand, but the heat was nice.

“We’ve some biscuits as well,” William said, gesturing at a plate of small cookies.

“Thanks.” Xander popped one into his mouth. It wasn’t very sweet, but it was nice and buttery, at least.

“I’d very much like to hear some of your tales of California,” William said. “But of course you didn’t come here for that. Please, how may I assist you?”

Xander took a sip and burned his tongue. He thought faster than he ever had before. “Well, here’s the thing. A while back, I was in this bar. In, uh, New York City. And I got to talking to this guy, and I told him that someday I hoped to visit England. ‘Cause he was English. And he said if I ever made it over here, I should look up his old pal, William Pratt, who lives at 43 Great Russell Street. So here I am.” Xander sat back in his chair, pleased with himself.

But William was still puzzled. “I can’t think of anyone who’s traveled to New York…. What was his name, please?”

Shit. “Uh, I forget. Sorry. It was a couple years ago and I wrote it down, but then I lost the paper. I remembered your name and address, though.”

“I see,” William replied, but he didn’t look especially convinced.

Xander took a deep breath. “So here’s the thing. I’m here in London, but I don’t know a single person. And I don’t really know anything about England either, and I’m sort of dead broke. That’s why I’m here. I was kind of hoping you could help me.”

William set his cup down. “Look here! If you’re some sort of…of confidence man, or if you mean to—”

“Whoa! Hang on! I’m not here to steal from you.” Only to kill you and turn you into a vampire, he added, but not out loud. “I told you—I’m all with the white hatness. Really. I just need a hand, that’s all. I thought maybe…maybe you could help me find a job and a place to live. Maybe I could do something for you in return? I’m a carpenter. A damn good one, if I say so myself. You need something fixed, I’m your man.”

“Are you implying that my home is not in good order?”

“No! Your house looks great. It’s just that—in my experience—there’s always stuff that needs repairing.”

William sighed and his face relaxed. “Well, the truth is, there are a few matters here and there that need attention. The inheritance from father only stretches so far, and workmen’s prices can be quite dear. And I’m afraid my skills lie more with a pen than a hammer.”

Xander smiled broadly. “Point me at your broken stuff, and I’ll fix it. Um…if I can borrow a couple of tools.”

Once again, the other man gave him a long, considering look. And then he must have made up his mind, because he smiled back. “I’ll tell you what, old man. We’ve loads of extra rooms here. You can stay for a bit, conduct a few of those repairs. Share some of your stories of California.”

Xander felt like jumping up and down. But all he did was grin even more widely. “That’s great, Sp—uh, William! Thanks!”

“I’d heard you Americans were rather more…familiar. Shall I call you Xander?”

“That’s my name.”

But then William bit at his lip. He looked so young and uncertain and human like that. The sight of him did strange things to Xander’s brain. Things that Xander immediately banished to the very deepest, darkest depths of his subconscious.

“There is one additional matter,” William said at last.

“Yeah?”

William nodded. “I shall require my mother’s consent to our arrangement.”

  
[Chapter Three](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/219161.html) 

 

  
  



	3. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 3 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (3/12)**   
_

**  
Three  
**

 

William reminded Xander of a little kid who was trying to pull something over on his parents, like the time when Jesse and Xander were eight and they’d found a stray dog and had attempted to hide it in Jesse’s room. Xander hoped the current scam worked better than the one with the puppy. At least Xander wasn’t going to eat the doorframe or piss on the carpet.

Well, he might do the second one pretty soon. “William,” he whispered urgently as they waited for Mrs. Pratt to arrive. “I need to use your bathroom.”

William blinked at him. “You want a bath _now_?”

“I need to take a leak. Really bad.”

More blinking, and then William actually blushed, which made Xander laugh despite his discomfort. “You’d like…you require the water closet?” William whispered back.

“Yes! Merciful Zeus, please!”

William nodded. He led Xander down a hall and to a small, plain door. When William opened the door, Xander was enormously relieved to see a genuine toilet—extra ornate and kind of weird-looking with the tank and pull chain above, but still a toilet. “Thanks!” Xander exclaimed and, too desperate to be polite, slammed the door in William’s face.

Feeling immensely better, Xander was being introduced five minutes later to Anne Pratt.

“Xander! What an…unusual name! Is it common in America, Mr. Harris?” she asked him.

“It’s short for Alexander, actually.”

“Ah, I see. Is it possible you’re related to Mr. and Mrs. James Harris, of the Knightsbridge Harrises? They have a rather large family—I daresay some of them have made their way to America.”

“Not that I know of,” Xander replied. “My folks have been in the US for a long time.”

Mrs. Pratt looked politely doubtful, and William stepped in. “Mother, Mr. Harris here—or Xander, as he prefers me to call him, because Americans are quite informal, you know—Xander happened to make the acquaintance in New York of my old friend Samuel Beckings. You remember Beckings, don’t you?”

She frowned. “No…I’m afraid not.”

“Well, it’s been some time, Mother. We were at university together, and then he went off to America on a bit of a lark. Met a girl there. Her father owns a large clothing manufactory. They produce some of the finest fashions on the continent, I’ve been told. Old Beckings married into it and settled down. And then Xander here happens to make his acquaintance at, erm, at a church social. Americans love church socials, right, Xander?”

“Yes, indeedy. Nothing beats a good social.”

William shot him a warning glare and went on. “Xander told Beckings of his intention to take a holiday in England, and of course Beckings told him to look in on us.” Dropping his voice and lifting his eyebrows at his mother, he added, “Xander’s family owns an important _publishing_ house, Mother.”

Mrs. Pratt cooed delightedly, and Xander tried to look literate, while silently admiring William’s ability to lie smoothly even with a soul and without a demon.

“Now,” William said, clapping Xander on the shoulder like an old pal, “Xander has been inquiring after suitable accommodations. I was thinking perhaps the Midland Grand Hotel—”

“William! I wouldn’t hear of it!” She scowled at her son and then smiled at Xander. “Of course Mr. Harris will stay with us.”

Xander said, “Gee, Mrs. Pratt, that’s really nice of you. But I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense. It shall be a great pleasure. William, do run off and fetch Maggie, and ask her to make up that room on the second floor, the one across from yours.” She looked at Xander. “I hope it will do. It’s quite modest, but I believe you’ll find it comfortable, and it’s better furnished than many of the others.”

“I’m sure it’s great. Thank you.”

She clasped her hands together. “William, please make sure our guest gets settled in nicely. I’m afraid I’ve an obligation this afternoon, Mr. Harris: Mrs. Hamilton and I read to the ill at St. Thomas’s Hospital on Wednesday afternoons. I shall see you both at dinner.”

William walked closer to her, took one of her hands in both of his, and gave her a little kiss on the cheek. “The weather is frightful today. Perhaps you should stay home. Your health—”

“My health is fine.”

“But Dr. Gull said—”

“Surely Dr. Gull wouldn’t begrudge my charity work, William! I shall be fine. Mrs. Hamilton shall be coming around in a hired carriage, and I shall remain quite warm and dry. Now go, tend to Mr. Harris. I’m so looking forward to hearing more about his adventures in America!”

As she swept out of the room, William turned to Xander and flashed him a triumphant grin that was pure Spike.

 

***

 

In England, the second floor really meant the third floor. Which was kind of confusing. But the room William took him to was a nice one, not as cluttery as the rest of the house, with a pair of windows that gave a view over a gray garden. The main furnishings were an enormous bed and a pair of big leather chairs. A cheery fire roared in the hearth and there were a few paintings on the walls—scenes of lakes and gardens.

“WC’s just next door,” William said. “And if you fancy a bath, there’s one down the hall. Maggie can fill the tub for you.”

“It doesn’t fill itself?”

William gave him another of those looks. “Of course not.”

“But you have running water….”

“ _Cold_ running water. You want to bathe in that?”

Xander missed hot showers already. “No. I guess not.”

William tilted his head, again appearing fairly Spikish. “You do bathe in California, do you not?”

“Of course! We have—um—rivers. And lakes. And the ocean, which is kinda warm but also salty, so not so good with the getting clean part.”

William shook his head. “You come from a very strange place.”

“You have no idea, dude.”

William hovered at the doorway for a moment. “I shall have Maggie warn you an hour before dinner, so you have time to dress.”

“Dress?” When was he supposed to undress? He’d missed that part. Maybe it had something to do with the bath he wasn’t going to take.

“Yes. Dress for dinner.” And then William caught on. “Where is your luggage?”

“Don’t have any. It was, um, stolen.” He held his arms up. “What you see is what I got.”

“Well, that won’t do at all. Perhaps Americans are accustomed to wearing those strange garments, but here in the civilized world we wear proper clothing.” He stroked at his silk vest.

Xander imagined William seeing Spike in his usual punk-goth-wear. Proper clothing. Xander snorted.

“Did I say something amusing?”

Xander sighed. “No. Sorry. I’m a little tired, is all. Kind of giddy. I’ve traveled a long way.” That was a major understatement. “Look, I’m sorry, but this is all I have. If it won’t work, I can grab a sandwich in the kitchen or something.”

“Mother would have my hide. No, you shall just have to wear that…that costume, I expect. We can go to my tailor’s tomorrow.”

“I’m broke, remember?”

“Well then, I shall have to lend you the funds.”

Xander felt guilty. “You don’t have to. I know money’s a little tight for you—”

“We can still afford a few suits of clothing. And perhaps a pair of shoes that is less…appalling.”

“Thanks. It’s nice of you.” And it was. Fuck. He hadn’t really expected to learn that William had been a pretty good guy.

William nodded. “Is there anything I can get for you in the meantime?”

“No, this is good, thanks. I’ll get some rest, I think. It’s a really nice room.”

“It was my father’s.”

“Oh,” Xander said uncomfortably. “Hey, if it brings back bad memories I can crash somewhere else. Anywhere. You wouldn’t believe some of the places I’ve slept.”

But William only shrugged. “It doesn’t bring back any memories at all. My father died when I was only a baby. He and my older sister. It was the cholera epidemic.”

“I’m sorry. That…that sucks. If it makes you feel any better, I have it on good authority that dying’s not so bad. Well, maybe dying’s bad, but being dead’s a cinch. They’ve…they’ve gone on to a better place.”

“Are you a Catholic, Xander? Not that I mind, but mother—”

“No, not a Catholic. I’m…doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.”

“Are all Americans as odd as you, Xander Harris?”

Xander grinned. “Some are even odder!”

 

***

 

He hadn’t dreamed since he died. It was one of the things you didn’t do in the afterlife, like pissing or laundry or worrying about getting sick. But when Xander kicked off his Reeboks and curled up under the thick quilts, inhaling the scent of lavender from the sheets, sleep settled on him quickly, and then he did dream.

He dreamt of Spike. Not William. But also not the Spike he’d known in Sunnydale. This was the version he’d met at Buffy’s grave, somber and without the snark. In the dream, Xander and Spike sat on the balcony of an apartment where Xander had once lived in Phoenix. The blazing desert sunshine wasn’t harming dream-Spike at all, but Xander knew he was still a vampire because he was sipping at a tall glass of blood with ice cubes in it.

“Enjoying your holiday, whelp?” Spike asked him.

“It’s not a holiday. I’m on a mission.”

“To kill me.”

“You tried to kill me plenty of times, Fangface.”

“Never tried all that hard, did I? Or you’d have had 30 fewer years on earth.” He smirked. “Would have died a virgin.”

“Whatever. I still have to kill you. I’m saving the world, Spike.”

Spike put his glass down and stood. He raised his arms out from his sides and the sun behind him created a silhouette in the shape of a crucified man. His clothes disappeared—just like that—and for a brief moment he was naked and perfect and beautiful. “Going to make me burn, Xander,” he said. Then he was in flames, his mouth open in a rictus of silent agony, his blue eyes scorching to black and melting down his face, his skin melting too, so he was just bones, but still he stood and suffered, and Xander only watched.

A loud pounding on the door woke him up, which was a very good thing. It took him a moment to get his bearings, to remember where he was. His heart was still racing. The room had grown dark, with the fire down to only a few embers.

“Mr. ‘Arris?”

“Yeah?” he managed.

“Dinner’s in just under an hour.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks.”

He stood and stretched and made his way into the hall, which was lit by gas lights. William’s door was shut and there was no sign of him, so Xander went to the WC and took a leak and washed his hands and rinsed his mouth, then did the best he could to tame his hair. He was going to need to ask for a comb and a razor and a toothbrush. Shaving and dental hygiene were two more things he hadn’t worried about since he died.

His preparations for dinner took about ten minutes, and he wondered what could make the others need a full hour. He took advantage of the opportunity to prowl around the house a little—carefully, because he didn’t want to run into William or Mrs. Pratt or Maggie or anyone else who was there. He felt kind of guilty about it, and sneaky—and it didn't help at all to remind himself of the times Spike had gone through his personal stuff in his parents’ basement and later in his apartment.

Anyway, he didn’t find much. Mostly a bunch of closed-up, unused rooms where there was either no furniture at all or only a few sizable lumps shrouded in heavy dust covers. A much larger family must have lived here once, maybe one with a lot of servants. It was kind of strange that the Pratts hadn’t sold the place and moved somewhere smaller, but he guessed it would be rude to ask why. In any case, even a casual walk-through showed him plenty of things that needed fixing. William had understated his repair problems, either out of pride or ignorance. Xander could keep busy with this stuff for weeks, probably.

He found William on the second floor, which Xander reminded himself was actually called the first floor. William was in a large study, the door to which was open as Xander walked by. William was sitting at a desk, staring off into space and tapping his chin with a pen. Several books were stacked nearby, and three or four were splayed open. He wore a pale shirt and robin’s-egg blue vest; his pants were navy and a matching coat with long tails was draped over a nearby chair.

“Hi,” Xander said from the doorway.

William looked up sharply, a little startled. “Oh, it’s you. Good evening.”

“What are you working on?”

“It’s meant to be a poem, but it’s rubbish, really. I can’t seem to find words that won’t throw off the meter. It’s terribly vexing.” He dropped his pen and stood, and brushed his hands together like he was trying to wipe away those troublesome words.

“Is that what you do for a living? Write?”

“Sadly, no. I should very much like to be published, but thus far the publishers have remained unconvinced of my talents.” He walked over to the other chair and slipped his coat on. “Mother has always hoped I’d take a position as a solicitor—I read law at Oxford—but I find it so tiresome. Well, if we don’t find some method to improve our finances I daresay I shall end up at the Inns of Court after all.”

William sounded so dispirited over that prospect that Xander couldn’t resist a comforting lie. “I’m sure you’re a great poet, and they’ll figure that out soon. You’ve always been good— You seem to be good with language.”

William tilted his head a little and then, to Xander’s surprise, gave him a small, shy smile. “Perhaps you might fancy hearing a few of my scribblings this evening, after dinner.”

Xander would rather slow dance with a Ichthior demon than listen to poetry. “That’d be great!” he said as enthusiastically as he could manage.

William’s smile grew broader, his cheeks flushed a little, and he dipped his head. “Let’s go murder some mutton,” he said gruffly.

They went downstairs to where Mrs. Pratt was waiting for them in the parlor. She was wearing a beaded silk dress in a somber dark blue; it matched William’s suit almost exactly, and Xander wondered if that was intentional. He felt really stupid in jeans and a tee. He was wearing his coat, too, because he had the impression that bare arms might be a no-no at mealtime. Mrs. Pratt had been sitting near the fire and reading a slim book, but she rose to greet them with a warm smile.

“Mr. Harris, I do hope your room is quite comfortable.”

“Very, thanks. I’m, um, I’m sorry about my clothing….” He looked down at himself unhappily.

“I find your attire quite…interesting. Intriguing,” she added gamely.

“It’s what people wear where I come from. California.”

“Ah. Well, I expect it’s quite practical in the wilderness. You know, I recently read some stories by the most extraordinary American author—Mr. Mark Twain—and I believe he spent some time in California as well. Are you acquainted with him?”

“Well, I’ve never met him, but I have read his stuff. _Huckleberry Finn_ is my favorite, I think.” It was. He’d always empathized a little with Huck, what with his drunk of a father and all.

Mrs. Pratt and William both frowned. “ _Huckleberry Finn_?” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve heard of that one before, and I thought I had read all Mr. Twain’s works.”

Oh, shit. What year was that book published?

Xander was saved from having to come up with a story when Mrs. Pratt smiled. “Perhaps that one has not yet made it to England. I shall look forward to it.”

“I think you’ll like it,” Xander replied, silently reminding himself to be more careful.

“I’m certain I shall,” she replied. Then William took her arm in his and they led Xander into the dining room.

As soon as they were all seated, William bowed his head and mumbled what Xander supposed was a short, fast prayer. And then, as if on cue, Maggie appeared with a large tureen. She ladled some soup into each of their bowls. It was slightly cloudy, with tiny chunks of unidentifiable meat. It didn’t taste like anything Xander had ever eaten before, but he was hungry and in polite mode, so he ate it dutifully.

More food appeared after that, in several courses: fish and some soggy boiled vegetables, some sort of potatoey stuff, a bunch of other things that Xander didn’t recognize at all, that mutton William had promised, cheese, bread, salad and celery. There was wine, too, and Xander was stuffed and a little buzzed by the time Maggie cleared away the dishes and lace tablecloth. But she came right back with more plates, and with some sliced fruits and jams and things, and William poured him some kind of sweet red wine.

Throughout the meal, they’d made small talk. Mrs. Pratt told about her afternoon at the hospital, and about some plans she was making for some sort of party for her lady friends. She asked Xander polite questions about his home and family, and what Americans ate, and he did his very best to answer them without lying too much or being too era-inappropriate. William was mostly silent, although he listened intently to his mother and to Xander.

When all the food was finally gone, Xander wasn’t sure who he was supposed to compliment—his hostess, or the girl who’d actually done the cooking. He settled on the safer route. “That was delicious, Mrs. Pratt. Thank you.”

It was the right choice, because she gave him another of her warm smiles. “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Harris. It’s a delight to have another man at the table.”

William didn’t look altogether pleased about that. He stood and offered his mother a hand, and they all went back to the parlor, where the fire was roaring. “Would you care for some tea?” Mrs. Pratt asked Xander. “Or perhaps you care to smoke.”

“No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”

“Good,” William interjected. “Filthy habit.”

Once again, Xander managed not to laugh.

They all sat down. Mrs. Pratt took up some sort of sewing thing—embroidery maybe, but Xander wasn’t sure—and they all chatted for a while. “I take it you’re unmarried?” Mrs. Pratt asked him at one point.

“I’m di—” Shit. Divorce was probably not very kosher. “I was almost married once, but she died.” That was the truth, too.

“Oh, dear! I am so sorry to raise such an unpleasant memory, Mr. Harris.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s…it’s been a while. When I think of her now, I think of the happy times.”

She nodded sagely. “Well, it’s such a shame, a handsome young man like you…. Perhaps one of our English roses will catch your eye. Now, let me see…Mrs. Walker’s youngest, Edith, has the most beautiful singing voice, and—”

“And she resembles a portly giraffe with a bad disposition. Mother, please don’t try to make matches for our poor guest.”

“William! That was entirely too rude! Edith Walker is a lovely girl. Just because you seem intent to remain a bachelor until you’re old and gray doesn’t mean Mr. Harris shares your desire.”

William rolled his eyes like a sulky teenager. “Mr. Harris’s desires are none of our affair.”

Xander suddenly remembered the last time he’d had sex—two years before he died, which was actually over a century and a half in the future. He’d just started feeling sick, but wasn’t miserable yet, and he’d picked up a younger man in a bar. A guy in his thirties, wiry and pale, and Xander couldn’t for the life of him remember the guy’s name, but he did remember how good it had felt to fuck him, and how loud the guy had howled when he came. Yeah. Probably not a good memory to share right now.

He tried for a charming grin. “I appreciate the thought, Mrs. Pratt. But I’m not really in the marriage market right now. I…kinda got a lot going on right now. Traveling and all, you know.” Mrs. Pratt looked like she was going to object, so Xander seized on a change of subject. “Hey, Will, how about if you read us a poem or two now?”

William mouthed the nickname as if he were tasting it. Then he blushed again—and Xander had to admit, he looked awfully cute when he did that—and scurried out of the room. He came back a moment later with papers in his hand and glasses on his face. Mrs. Pratt smiled expectantly and Xander tried to look like he wasn’t about to be tortured.

The poems were awful. Xander was no literary critic, but he could tell. There was one about flowers in a field, and one about the fleetingness of beauty, and one about death, and the last was about an unnamed love. The rhymes were forced, the imagery was strange, and William had been right—the meter was usually off.

But the thing was, Xander didn’t feel tortured at all.

Maybe it was William’s voice. Xander had always admired Spike’s voice—not just the accent, but the deepness of it, the way it held so much emotion. And okay, right now the emotion seemed to be about dandelions or something, but still.

Or maybe it was the earnestness with which the man read. The poems were terrible but they were important to him, and he seemed so sweet and innocent as he recited them, as he winced over some of his own turns of phrase. He was offering them something personal, something of himself, and how often did someone do that?

Or maybe it was his face. His blue eyes, squinting behind glass lenses. His expressive eyebrows, still unscarred. Those goddamned cheekbones, thrown into stark relief by the firelight.

Whatever it was, Xander couldn’t force his eyes away, and he smiled at William every time the other man glanced over his papers at him. Xander was disappointed when William finished.

“Told you. They’re all rubbish,” William said, his hands falling to his sides and his shoulders slumping.

Mrs. Pratt made a dismissive cluck and Xander shook his head forcefully. “No way. I enjoyed that. Really. Maybe…maybe tomorrow you could read some more?”

William’s eyes widened in shock and his mouth fell open a little. And then he smiled at Xander. A smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle and his face glow. It was the smile of a man who’d been given an unexpected but precious gift.

[Chapter Four](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/219538.html)

  



	4. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 4 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (4/12)**   
_

**  
Four  
**

 

Xander slept like the dead. Apparently being sort of reanimated and then sent back in time takes a lot out of a guy. Who knew?

It must have been late morning—although it was hard to tell with the leaden skies—when he finally hauled his groggy self out of bed, put his slightly grungy clothing back on, and visited the WC.

William met him as he was coming out. “Does everyone sleep the day away in California?” he asked with a familiar smirk.

“Only the vampires.”

Xander got a very strange look in response, but then he was getting pretty used to that. William was wearing a suit again. Xander supposed middle-class men of this time wore suits all the time and he grimaced at the thought of going through life with a tie around his neck, like a noose. Back in his working days he’d had to wear a jacket and tie now and then, but he’d always thrown them off the minute he got in his car, and as soon as he got home he’d swapped them for something much comfier: jeans or sweats and a baggy old tee and, whenever possible, bare feet.

As they made their way down to the kitchen, there was no sign of the women. “I’ve eaten already,” William said. “But I can put the kettle on if you like, and we’ve bread and butter.”

“Coffee?” Xander said hopefully.

But his hopes were dashed. “No, just tea.”

Xander was pretty sure there was no Starbucks in nineteenth-century London, meaning the nearest venti Caramel Macchiato was 150 years away. He sighed. “Okay. Tea and bread it is, I guess. Thanks.”

He smiled at the man’s domesticity as he watched William bustle around a kitchen that didn’t even have a toaster. And soon, with a friendly grin, William handed Xander a teacup and a plate full of bread. The tea was…tea. Bleh. But it was caffeine at least, and the bread was really delicious. “Thanks,” he said to William with his mouth full.

“I expect in California you have buffalo for breakfast,” William said with one corner of his mouth raised.

“Yep. Big old buffalo steaks. Rare. And we cook ‘em over campfires.”

William looked suddenly wistful. “I would very much like to see California someday. Mountains! And towering trees, and bears, and, and…gold miners.”

Xander put his empty dishes on the table. “You’ll get to see it someday, Will. I know it.”

William shook his head as if in disbelief.

After donning heavy overcoats—William had a spare that fit Xander all right—they grabbed umbrellas and made their way outside. This time Xander managed to not get run over, but he was still a little overwhelmed at the bustle around him, which seemed much less orderly than the city crowds he’d experienced in twenty-first-century USA. It gave him a little solace to know that everyone he saw—like the tall, bearded man who scowled when Xander almost collided with him—wouldn’t last two seconds on an LA freeway.

“Hey,” Xander said as William dragged him along the street. “Could we visit a drugstore, too?”

“A what?”

“A…someplace where I could get a razor and stuff.”

“We can stop at the barber’s if you fancy a shave. You do look rather…bristly.” William stroked his own chin with one gloved hand. “I’m afraid I don’t grow whiskers very quickly. But you could have a heavy beard and mustaches in no time at all.”

“I prefer the clean-shaved look.”

“It suits you,” William said, then blushed and looked down at his feet.

Xander might have blushed a little, too. He cleared his throat. “Okay, then a barber. But I still need stuff—a comb, a toothbrush, toothpaste, that kind of thing.”

“Toothpaste?”

Oh, Christ, they did have toothpaste, didn’t they? “Yeah, you know, gooey minty stuff for cleaning teeth,” Xander said hopefully.

“I know what toothpaste is. I hadn’t realized dental cleanliness was a priority in California.”

“Oh, you have no idea, dude. We’re really big on flashing the pearly whites. You should take good care of your teeth, Will. They might be important to you someday.” Probably he shouldn’t mention fangs, orthodontists, veneers, or bleaching.

“Your teeth are beautiful,” William said in a sort of husky voice, before yanking Xander out of the way of a man pushing a cart full of turnips. And then, before Xander could craft a coherent response, they were entering a shop. A bell jangled merrily over the door and a man in a white coat smiled at them from behind a long, polished oak counter. Behind him, hundreds of shelves were crammed with glass vials, metal and marble bowls, and bottles of who-knew-what.

“Is this a drugstore?” Xander whispered.

“Chemist’s,” William hissed back and marched up to the counter.

“How may I assist you, gentlemen?” the man asked. He had a long, shiny mustache.

“We’d like a toothbrush, please, and a pot of toothpaste,” replied William. Xander was busy craning his neck, peering at the mystery items all around him. This was certainly not a Walgreens.

The man said, “Of course. What sort of brush—pig’s bristles or badger?”

Xander tried to hide his disgust— _pig_ bristles?—while William pondered for a moment. “Just pig, I think.”

The mustached man nodded and rummaged around behind the counter. After a few seconds, he set the items down: a squat glass pot and a brush that looked like it had a handle made of bone. William also had him fetch a wooden comb, and then the man wrapped everything in paper and tied the bundle with a string. William handed the parcel to Xander and paid.

After the chemist’s they stopped at a barber. Xander tried very hard not to think about Sweeney Todd when the guy produced a wicked-looking straight blade, but he had to admit that the result was a very nice, close shave. William got a shave, too, although he didn’t especially need one. And then they went to a clothing shop where the tailor and his assistant seemed to know William and exclaimed over Xander’s exotic outfit. They measured him everywhere, showed William some choices in fabrics and styles (Xander only nodded when various coats and trousers were waved in his face), and promised to bring Xander’s new clothing around the next day. As far as Xander could tell, William didn’t pay the tailor anything, but maybe you were supposed to pay on delivery.

The next stop was a department store, in which Xander proved his complete ignorance of Victorian underwear, much to William’s and the clerk’s amusement. When they left—with the clerk’s promise that appropriate things would be delivered to Great Russell Street that afternoon—Xander knew that the clerk was under the impression that Americans were savages who didn’t wear underclothes at all. But Xander didn’t care, because he’d ended up with a pretty snazzy pair of midnight blue silk pajamas and a blood-red dressing gown.

Afterwards, they visited a shoemaker who was so fascinated with Xander’s Reeboks that Xander suspected he’d have sold his soul for them. But Xander kept a tight grip on the old pair as he was fitted with new black ankle boots with square toes and elastic closures. They were heavy, but warm and comfortable, and they’d keep his feet a lot drier than sneakers.

This was already more shopping than Xander had ever done in one day, but William wasn’t through with him yet. They visited a haberdasher’s, in which Xander snickered over the deerstalkers—“Elementary, my dear Watson,” he exclaimed, much to William’s puzzlement—and refused both a top hat and bowler. He settled on a dark gray Homburg with a black-beribboned brim, which he thought made him look pretty dashing. Maybe he should have worn hats more when he was alive.

Mercifully, William decided Xander could continue to wear the spare overcoat. Xander wasn’t sure he could survive more trying on of clothes. Besides, he was feeling increasingly guilty about spending so much of the Pratts’ money. Not that William complained about that part. In fact, he seemed pretty cheerful about the whole outing for reasons Xander couldn’t fathom.

They made only one stop for William, at a stationers. This proprietor also clearly knew William, fussing over him enormously as William took his time choosing paper and ink.

By then Xander was exhausted and famished, and he was utterly relieved when he recognized the turn onto Great Russell Street. But then a thought occurred, which triggered a sudden halt—almost causing a collision with the guy behind him. “William?” he said.

His companion was several steps ahead by then, and he looked surprised to discover he’d left Xander behind. “What?” he asked, doubling back.

“Do you have tools at your place? Hammer, nails, things like that?”

William shook his head. “I expect not.”

So they turned around and went to one more shop, this one an ironmonger’s, which was England-speak for a hardware store. It wasn’t exactly Home Depot. But at least here Xander didn’t look like an idiot. Tools really hadn’t changed that much between this century and Xander’s, although he knew he was going to miss his cordless electric drill. But he got a nice hammer and a bunch of nails of various sizes and a handsaw and a few other odds and ends, and he figured those would do. For the first time, William seemed impressed by his depth of knowledge. The clerk said he’d send his boy over soon with everything, and then Xander and William headed home.

Maggie met them with a harried smile and a hot lunch—more soup, which Xander learned to his dismay was turtle, and leftover mutton in sauce, and boiled potatoes with something green and soggy. But there was ale, too, good ale, which evinced considerably more enthusiasm from Xander than had the previous night’s wine.

“Californians don’t fancy the art of the grape?” William asked.

“Um…not yet. I have the feeling that one day they’ll fancy it really excessively, but for now it’s all about the hard stuff, I guess.”

 William swallowed some of his ale and set the glass down. “You’re quite a prognosticator, aren’t you?”

“A what?”

“A gentleman who fancies predictions about the future.”

“Oh. Well, I’m no Nostradamus or anything. But I like to make an educated guess now and then.”

“Hmm,” William said noncommittally. Then he stood and Xander did too. Xander wasn’t sure whether he should clear his own dishes—it wasn’t like he’d ever had a servant before—but William didn’t give his a second glance as he strode out of the room, so Xander let them be.

“I should like to do some writing now,” William said, glancing towards his study. “If you wouldn’t think me terribly rude?”

“No problemo. If it’s okay with you, actually, I’d like to get cracking on some of the DIY projects around here.” When William stared at him, baffled, Xander clarified, “The repairs.”

“Ah. Well, by all means, feel free to DYI.”

Xander didn’t smirk. “Is there anyplace in particular you want me to start?”

“Erm…no. I’m not certain what’s in good order and what isn’t, to be honest. Most of the rooms remain closed up. There are some I haven’t entered in years.”

“It’s…it’s a pretty big house. For just a couple people, I mean.”

“It’s been in the family for several generations. The Pratts were once a large and quite prominent family, but our numbers and fortunes have declined over the years. Mother quite fears that the name will die out completely with me.”

“Oh. Well then, I guess you’ll have to make sure you’re really famous. Or at least infamous.”

“Another of your predictions, Xander?”

Xander only smiled enigmatically, then looked around. “Hey, are there any parts of the place you don’t want me poking my nose into?”

“Mother’s quarters are on the ground floor, at the end of the hall. She can’t manage the stairs at all well anymore.” He looked grim for a moment, and then shook himself out of it. “I doubt anything there is in disrepair anyway, so please don’t disturb her. She requires her rest.”

“I’ll stay away. Plenty to keep me busy elsewhere.”

William gave him a small smile that, for no reason Xander could name, twisted Xander’s heartstrings. Then he wandered off to write poetry.

 

***

 

He decided to begin near the third floor, where several stairs were loose and creaky and the railing was about ready to fall off completely. The tools must have arrived while they were eating, because they were sitting on his bed alongside several other piles of stuff he’d accumulated during the morning. He grabbed what he figured he’d need and headed for the stairway.

When Xander worked, the rest of the world dropped away. That had always been the case. Maybe that was why carpentry had held such appeal for him all those years ago in Sunnydale. As long as he was sawing and pounding, he wasn’t thinking about demons or parents or girls (or the boys he still wasn’t admitting sometimes entered his mind), wasn’t worrying about apocalypses or being a loser. His life had changed considerably after Sunnydale. He’d given up slayage, for one thing, after the damned missing eye almost got him killed once too often. He’d moved away from the Scoobies. He’d come out as bi, got married, got divorced…his worries were mostly more normal mid-American concerns like paying taxes and refinancing mortgages and getting his car repaired. But even still, when he worked everything fell away and he was alone in the world with his tools and his project.

Death, resurrection, and time travel didn’t change that. As soon as he began to swing his hammer, it didn’t matter where he was or what he was supposed to do while he was there. He was fixing something, and he was going to do a goddamned good job of it, too.

He didn’t realize he had an audience until he’d worked his way down to the second floor landing. There was William leaning against the wall, watching him; something so bright and aware in his eyes that Xander almost expected him to flash to gameface.

“Sorry,” Xander said. “The noise wasn’t bugging you, was it?”

William shook his head. “I was only coming up to fetch a book, and….” He bit at his lip. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

“Call me Mr. Fix-It. I don’t have a lot of talents, but yeah, I think I’m good at this.”

“There’s nothing I excel at like that.”

He looked so…wistful. “That’s not true, Will.”

“What, my writing? I’m not an idiot, you know. You were very polite last night, but it’s all rubbish. I can feel it in my head: the sort of beauty I yearn for with my words. I can almost touch it…but not quite.”

“I enjoyed hearing you read. I mean it. But…maybe you just haven’t discovered your talents yet. I was kind of a late bloomer myself.”

William snorted. “I’m nearly thirty, Xander. That’s not late blooming, it’s…it’s withered. Barren.”

“You still have plenty of time to figure it out.” Not before William died, of course, but afterwards he had all the time in the world.

“Your faith in me is sadly misplaced.”

Xander took a deep breath. “Look, I once knew…someone like you. A lot like you. And we didn’t get along at first—well, that’s pretty much an enormous understatement. He was pretty much an asshole and I was…I was a snotty kid. Then he changed and I didn’t really see it at first. Hardly anybody did. But another friend of mine, she believed in him, and he saved…he did some really good stuff. He saved a lot of people, including me. I learned some stuff from that, and I know when to put faith in someone. Like you, Will.”

It was kind of a speech, and it made the other man gape at him for a moment. Xander wanted to gape, too. He didn’t usually make speeches. But maybe it was worth it, because then William’s cheeks colored and he ducked his head, but not before Xander caught his tiny, pleased smile. “I need my book,” William muttered as he brushed by Xander on the stairs, so close they almost touched.

  
[Chapter Five](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/219708.html)

 

  
  



	5. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 5 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (5/12)**   
_

**  
Five  
**

 

Xander’s new clothing arrived the next day. It was uncomfortable and he felt silly wearing it, as if he’d paid for one of those Old Tyme photos at a fair and forgot to remove the costume. But his twenty-first-century wear was pretty gross by then, and he figured he owed the Pratts the courtesy of at least dressing epoch-appropriately. While he worked though, he kept off the vest and jacket and tie, keeping only shoes and pants and rolled-up shirtsleeves. It kept his new stuff cleaner, and he saw very little of William or his mother during the day anyway.

Mrs. Pratt seemed to be pretty busy with domestic matters, overseeing Maggie and the household in general. And she did charity work and went on lots of social calls. Sometimes people called on her too, mostly women her age, sometimes with a daughter or two in tow. Xander had the feeling that some of these daughters were supposed to catch William’s eye, but William was patently uninterested.

Then the girls began to eye Xander instead. He was introduced as an acquaintance from the United States and, until he could manage polite escapes, he had to field endless questions about the wonders of America. Most of it he just made up. He hoped he wasn’t screwing up any timelines that way. Mostly when Mrs. Pratt had visitors, Xander tried to remain upstairs at work.

William spent his days writing or haunting bookshops. Xander noticed that he seemed to have an inordinate number of errands to run in whatever part of the house Xander happened to be working on. Xander didn’t mind the occasional audience, but he wondered why William seemed to like to watch him so much.

And then one afternoon he realized why. Xander was working in a room on the third floor, fixing a window that had been badly framed and was jammed shut, then rehanging a sagging door and pulling out some wainscoting that was afflicted with dry rot. At some point in the proceedings, William had dragged a chair into the room and he’d simply sat there, observing. He didn’t try to interrupt Xander with questions or conversation, but he must have been there for almost two hours when Xander stood and stretched his sore back.

He kicked at the pile of wood he’d taken off the wall. “Do you want to replace this? Or if you’d rather, I could paint the place instead.”

William looked around as if decorating was something that had never occurred to him. “Wallpaper?”

“Nah. Take my word for it. Wood or paint. ‘Cause the paper’s gonna look out of date in a few years and then you just have to redo it, and that’s pricey. Plus, well, damp’s kind of an issue in this room—should be better now that I’ve fixed the window, but _everywhere_ ’s damp in this city—and damp and paper are not very mixy.”

“Erm…all right, then. Paint. We can go to the shop tomorrow if you like.”

“No hurry. Gonna take me a few days to prep anyway. Some of the plaster’s crumbly and the lath needs replacement. Man, drywall’s so much easier.”

“Drywall?”

Xander grinned. “Nevermind. It’s…kind of an American thing.”

“Oh,” William said. He obviously knew nothing whatsoever about construction, yet there he was. And that’s when it occurred to Xander that, aside from during his mother’s social calls, William never seemed to spend time with anyone but his mother. And Xander, of course. Shit. He was lonely, just as Spike would later hang around with the Scoobies mostly because he had nobody else to hang with.

“Will?” Xander asked as nonchalantly as possible, turning away to scrape at some of that plaster.

“Yes?”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking this. I’m…we’re kinda direct about this kind of stuff in the States. But…am I keeping you from your friends?”

There was such a long silence that Xander almost turned around to see whether William had left. But then, in a voice that was almost a whisper, William said, “I haven’t any friends.”

Fuck. Keeping his face neutral, Xander turned around. “Come on! I can’t believe that. I mean, you’re a cool guy.”

“Cool?”

“You’re…you’re fun to be around. Smart. Funny.”

William shook his head disbelievingly. “Most people find me rather…caustic, I expect. And they don’t understand me. They don’t understand how a man might be interested in matters beyond the latest fashions and gossip about who is courting whom. How a man might yearn for something…something _larger_. Perhaps…perhaps something darker.” His voice dropped as he said that last sentence.

“They don’t get you. Yeah, I feel that. But it’s a big city…there must be someone—”

“It’s a big city full of small-minded simpletons!” William yelled, leaping up from his chair. He began to pace. “Oh, I’ve acquaintances. Men with whom I went to university. Men whose fathers knew my father. Men who have eligible spinster maiden sisters. I attend their parties sometimes, to make Mother happy, mostly, but I don’t…I’m not one of them. I know it.” He sighed and slumped, all the fight suddenly gone out of him. “They know it.”

“Maybe…maybe you’re looking in all the wrong places. I’ve never had much in the way of guy friends myself. There was this one, but I…he died when we were fifteen. And there’s Giles, but he was more like my dad. My friends are all girls. Platonic friends, I mean, none of them are into me. They’re good friends, though. The best.”

“Women? Now, I admit that women may be naturally endowed with all of the intellectual capacities that men are, perhaps even more, as they are not distracted by more…more violent passions. Mother, for example, possesses a mind as acute as any gentleman’s. And perhaps in California the situation is different, but here maidens are forced to…to waste their potential by forever chasing after a husband, and once they have caught one then they are meant to sit about like ornaments, sewing or playing pianos or organizing soirees.”

Xander blinked. “Way to go with the girl power, Will, if a little ahead of your time. Okay, so you need a smart woman, a strong one. I shouldn’t be surprised at that. There must be _one_!”

William folded himself ungracefully back onto his chair. “Well, there is one….”

“See! I knew it!”

“But she’d never have me. She’s beautiful, Xander, and accomplished, and she could have any man she chose.”

“But she hasn’t chosen, has she? Maybe because she’s waiting for Mr. Right. That could be you, Will.”

“No.” William shook his head. “I’ve been at parties with her. She hardly glances my way.”

Xander thought furiously. “Well, maybe this girl— What’s her name?”

“Cecily. Cecily Underwood,” William sighed.

“Okay, maybe you just need to find a way to get this Cecily to notice you. To…to appreciate some of your finer points.”

“And how am I to do that? Shall I turn cartwheels in her presence?”

Xander put down his putty knife and walked over to William’s chair. “Cartwheels would do the trick, probably. But maybe you can try something a little more subtle. Maybe you should write her a poem.”

“Oh, no! I couldn’t!”

“Why not? What’ve you got to lose? If she doesn’t dig the poem, well, she’s not worth it anyway. But if she does…. Come on. What girl wouldn’t want a handsome man writing her something romantic?”

“Handsome?” William asked sharply.

Oops. Xander clapped a slightly grimy hand onto William’s shoulder. “Dreamy. Give it a shot, Will.”

William thought about that for a long moment, chewing on his lip, and then slowly rose. He gave a determined little nod and left, a look of fragile hope on his face.

As soon as he was gone, Xander sank his face into his hands. His mouth tasted like iron and dirt.

 

***

 

On the third floor, Xander discovered a room with the furnishings uncovered and in good condition. Someone must have dusted the room fairly recently, but clearly nobody was actually using it, because it was a child’s room.

A small bed was placed against one wall, still covered in white linens and a colorful quilt. There was an adult-sized rocking chair near it. One corner of the room held a tiny table with four tiny chairs; the table was still set with miniature china, as if a tea party were in progress but the attendees had just stepped out for a minute. There was a shelf of children’s books, and other shelves contained toys and stuffed animals and elaborately dressed dolls.

Two framed photographs were arranged on top of a dresser, and Xander stepped closer for a better look. One photograph showed a young boy, maybe five or six years old, very thin, with pale, curly hair. He was lying on a small, ornate couch kind of thing, wearing a dark suit. His eyes were closed and he held a wooden horse under one arm. At first Xander thought it might have been William, but then as he peered more closely, he realized with a start that the little boy in the picture was dead.

The other photo was worse: it showed two corpses. One of them was a man. He looked a lot like William—same stunning cheekbones, same slightly knobby chin. His hair was darker though, long on the sides and slicked back on top, and he had a thick mustache. He was propped up in a chair, his arms seemingly relaxed but his head lolling slightly unnaturally. A little girl with sweet blonde ringlets was in a smaller chair next to him. She wore a frilly light-colored dress and there was a doll in her lap.

“This was Eleanor’s room.”

Xander jumped, spun around, and squeaked with surprise. William was standing in the doorway, his hands clasped behind him. His glasses were peeking out of his coat pocket and his hair was a mess; he must have been running his fingers through it again while he was writing.

“Sorry,” Xander said, trying to catch his breath. Apparently good sneaking-up skills preceded Spike’s vampirism. “I didn’t mean to be nosy. I was just—”

“It’s fine,” William said, coming into the room. “Mother’s kept it as a sort of morbid shrine, but she hasn’t been up here in some time.” He stood beside Xander and looked at the photos.

“Eleanor was your sister?”

“Yes.” He pointed at one of the photos. “She and father died in the cholera epidemic of ’54. It was…it was a terrible blow to Mother. I daresay she never truly recovered.”

“And you?”

William shrugged. “I was two. I haven’t any memories of either of them. Mother has told me many times how very grateful she was not to lose me as well, as young as I was. I expect that’s why sometimes she….” He paused and smiled wryly. “She was a bit overprotective, when I was a child. Understandable, of course. She’d lost Harold before I was born.” He nodded towards the other picture. “Typhus. There was another boy as well, Bertram. He was a year younger than Harold, but he died only a few hours after he was born. We haven’t any photographs of him.”

Xander had known that early death was common in this time, especially among children, but he’d never before felt the emotional reality of that. What must it have been like for Anne Pratt to lose three children and a husband? “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“I wish I had known them, at least for a short time. Mother rarely speaks of them. And yet at times it seems as if I’m haunted by them all, as if their ghosts still wander this house. At times it feels as if they have more life than I.”

William was still looking at his dead family members, and Xander put a hand on his shoulder. “You have more life than anyone I know, Will.” He meant it. Even undead, Spike had always been vibrant. Vital.

William turned his head and gave Xander a thankful little smile. They were standing so close, and Xander could smell him: soap and ink and the citrusy-spicy scent of bay rum. William's sharp blue eyes were searching Xander’s face—for what, Xander didn’t know—and all of a sudden Xander’s breathing felt ragged and his heart was beating like a pair of bongos.

The other man took a breath that was almost a hiss and stepped away, allowing Xander’s hand to slide off his shoulder. William turned his back to Xander and stared at the photos for a moment. “Have you…have you any brothers or sisters?” he finally asked. “You never speak of your family.”

“I’m an only child. My parents died a long time ago.” Or a long time in the future, depending on your perspective.

William turned back, his brow creased with concern. “I am sorry! And here I was, prattling on about my own misfortunes….”

“No, it’s not…. My parents were assholes, Will. Dad was a drunken son-of-a-bitch and Mom was a lush, too, and most of the time neither of them could pull their heads out of their own asses long enough to realize they even had a kid.”

“That’s…that’s horrible!” William looked appalled.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about the not-so-pretty words. I still have a lot of anger about it, I guess. I shouldn’t. I mean, it’s been…a while, and I turned out okay despite them. But it’s hard to let go. I tried therapy for a while, when I was kinda dealing with some other issues, and maybe it helped, I don’t know….”

But William shook his head. “I meant it’s horrible that you haven’t any family at all.”

“It’s okay. I had…I have friends who are as good as family. Better. They love me. They’d die for me, and I feel the same way about them.”

“I have never had a friend like that.”

Xander wanted to tell William that he would have friends like that someday, but he wasn’t sure it was true. Drusilla had loved Spike in her own way, but she was a batshit-crazy vampire who cheated on him and, when Spike was laid up in that wheelchair, pretty much dumped him for Angelus. And Buffy—she had genuinely cared about Spike. She’d risked her neck to rescue him even, back when the First was fucking them all over. She’d mourned him when he burned. But she hadn’t loved him the way he loved her. Xander remembered seeing Spike at Buffy’s grave, and the vampire had been alone then, too. Jesus.

With a weak smile, Xander said, “Hey. I know I’ve only been here a couple weeks and maybe I’m not such a great catch and I can’t guarantee I’ll lay my life on the line for you.” In fact, Xander was rather painfully reminded, he was going to make sure the poor guy died. Fuck. “But I’d be honored if you counted me as a friend.” And those words, at least, were completely honest.

William gave him a blinding smile and grasped both of Xander’s hands in his. “The honor is all mine, Xander Harris.”

They were both silent a moment after that, looking at one another, and somehow it wasn’t awkward. Then William dropped Xander’s hands and his grin turned a little crooked, so it was almost his old smirk. “Perhaps Mother is correct, and we ought to find you a pretty young thing. I’ve seen them drooling over you, you know. You’re quite exotic. I expect half the eligible girls in London are gossiping over you by now.”

“Only half?”

“Well, it’s only been three weeks.”

“Can’t stop them from gossiping, I guess, but I’m not in the market for a wife.” And then, because he couldn’t handle any more dishonesty to this good man, he went on. “I was almost married once, Will. I loved her but I chickened out and I left her at the altar. I hurt her. Almost…almost destroyed her. And just when she was really recovering, she died. Later I did marry someone, and that time I erred the other way and said ‘I do,’ when I should have been saying ‘I don’t.’ We got divorced. That’s enough—no more weddings for me.”

William didn’t seem too shocked over that revelation, although his head was tilted. “You’ve had a great many adventures for such a young man.”

Xander snorted. “You don’t know the half of it, buddy.”

“But surely a…a virile gentleman such as yourself doesn’t mean to give up on the fair sex completely!”

“Umm, yeah. About that….” Xander realized his face had gone red, but still he couldn’t stop the truth from pouring out of his mouth. “It’s not always about girls for me, you know?”

William didn’t know. He just looked puzzled.

“I’m bi,” Xander explained. When that obviously didn’t clarify things, he sighed. “I am attracted to both women and men, Will. I mean, physically attracted. I like having sex with both of them. Um, not at the same time. Well, there was that one time…um, and that other time, too…. Anyway, I’m an equal opportunity sort of guy when it comes to the bedroom.”

William’s mouth had fallen open again and now his face was as flushed as Xander’s. But at least he hadn’t punched Xander, or thrown him out of his house. Yet. But he did take a few steps backwards. “You are a…a _sodomite_?”

“Um, on occasion, I guess. Look, Will, I’m maybe a little bent, but I’m not a pervert. Well, okay, maybe I am…Anya taught me a few things. But I’m a polite perv, okay? Respectful. I’m not gonna try and molest you or anything, I’m not gonna…put on a rainbow flag and sing showtunes in front of your mom or try and introduce your pals…your acquaintances…to techno music. But if it makes you uncomfortable to have me around, I understand. I’ll go.” Although what the hell he would do with himself then, he had no idea.

William made a visible effort to collect himself. “No.” And then he repeated it, more firmly. “No, I would not ask you to leave. I beg you to forgive my rudeness. I was…taken by surprise.” He came closer again and this time it was William who placed his hand on Xander’s shoulder. “Please. I should like it very much if you would stay. And if you would remain my friend.”

This proper Victorian man was being more accepting of Xander’s sexuality than his own family had been. And Xander was going to thank him by betraying him, killing him, damning him. Xander found himself fighting back tears when he replied, “Thanks, Will. I’d like to stay friends, too.”

[Chapter Six](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/220111.html)

 

  



	6. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
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**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (6/12)**   
_

  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 6 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

  
   


 **Six**  
 

 

“Xander?”

Xander startled and bonked his head against the underside of the table. When he backed out and looked up, he knew from the smug look on William’s face that William had done it on purpose. Third time this week. The evil little bastard loved creeping up behind him while he worked and scaring the hell out of him.

“If you damage Repair Guy’s head, nobody’s gonna fix your wobbly furniture, Will.” Xander sat back on his heels and rubbed the back of his skull. That unfortunate part of his anatomy had taken so many hits over the years. He wondered whether it had been reset, good as new, when he got zapped here or if, like Willow always used to warn him, he was still only one good blow away from vegetable city.

“But you’re so very excitable,” William smirked. “It’s rather amusing.”

“Yeah, well you’d be jumpy too if you grew up in a town where things were constantly trying to eat you.”

“ _Eat_ you? Are the natives cannibals? Or perhaps you mean bears and, erm…mountain lions, isn’t it?”

Xander smiled and stood and stretched. “Something like that.” He looked out the window into the courtyard garden. In the month he’d been here, he had learned to estimate the time based on the amount of pathetic sunlight that managed to penetrate the ubiquitous yellow clouds. He figured it was about one or two in the afternoon. “What’s up? Did you come here specifically to give me a concussion or did you need something?”

“Actually, I was thinking that you claim to have arrived here to see the city, and yet you’ve hardly left this house.”

“I’ve left. We’ve been to the barber almost every day, and we’ve gone shopping a couple times, and just Tuesday we went to that pub.”

William waved a hand dismissively. “You didn’t cross the Atlantic to get a shave and purchase handkerchiefs, Xander. There’s so much more to see!”

“But the weather sucks. Sorry, Will, California boy here. Tromping around in the rain and watching men in silly hats march around outside Buckingham Palace is not my idea of good times.”

“We’ve indoor pursuits as well. The British Museum, for example. It’s nearly next door. Why, the Reading Room alone is quite extraordinary, and the Assyrian collection—”

“Not really a museum-ish kind of guy, Will.” Actually, he’d been to the British Museum not too long after leaving Sunnydale, when they’d all come to England to stay at Giles’s place and try to put themselves back together. Giles had given them a tour of the museum—he’d worked there for several years before he came to California—and that was kind of cool, but it was plenty of culture for Xander. He’d seen the Rosetta Stone now, and he was pretty sure that the really cool stuff, like that buried ship and that poor guy they’d found in a bog, hadn’t yet been dug up in William's time.

But William looked disappointed at Xander’s refusals, and for about the zillionth time since he’d arrived, Xander felt guilty. “Maybe there’s something else we could do indoors?” he suggested, hoping William wouldn’t catch the inherent double entendre-ness of the phrase.

William didn’t. Instead, he perked up. “I know just the thing! We can go to the theatre. I trust that will suit your American tastes? I understand Americans are as fond of theatre as are the English.”

“That sounds great.”

William bounced on the balls of his feet with excitement and grinned like he’d won the lottery. It was quickly decided that they would go the following evening. But then William announced that Xander had nothing at all suitable to wear for such an event and so he dragged Xander out of the house and to the tailor. Xander would have protested. The last thing he wanted was more grabby tailor hands all over him just so he could acquire even more uncomfortable, ridiculous clothing. But William was as enthusiastic as a little kid and Xander didn’t have the heart to say no.

 

***

 

“I look stupid.”

William gave him a long look. “No you don’t, Xander. You look brilliant.” Then he flushed slightly and turned his head away.

“William is quite correct,” Mrs. Pratt opined. “You look entirely dashing. I shouldn’t be surprised if the young ladies become quite faint at the sight of the two of you.”

Xander and William exchanged amused glances. The thing was, William really did look dashing. He could pull it off. Xander just felt ridiculous. He wore a dark frock coat with four buttons down the front and a tail that hung nearly to his knees. Underneath that was a black silk and velvet vest, a starched white shirt with a collar that poked at his neck, and a ridiculous little bowtie that William needed to knot for him. William had snickered about Xander’s continuing inadequacies as a gentleman, while Xander had tried desperately and semi-successfully to will away a hard-on brought about by the nearness of William's body and the slight grazes of those fingers against his sensitive skin.

Xander’s pants were tan and narrow-legged. He didn’t mind them, or the shiny laced boots. At least he’d managed to avoid the tailor’s attempts to make him wear spats. His fine-grained leather gloves would be really nice out in the chill. And thanks to William, he now owned a double-breasted frock overcoat with velvet collar. The worst part of all, though, was the hat: a black silk top hat that, as William had demonstrated to him happily, could be folded up so it would fit under the seat during the play.

Overall, the getup made Xander feel like an escapee from AbeLincolnCon.

A hansom cab was waiting for them outside the door of number 43. Xander, feeling like he was going to the prom, climbed in beside William. The driver sat above and behind them, his shoulders hunched against the rain. He pulled a lever that made the cab’s wooden doors fold shut. William looked up, and Xander saw that there was a sort of trap door on the roof that allowed them to speak to the driver. “Opera Comique,” William commanded, and the carriage began to roll.

Xander hadn’t actually been in a carriage since he’d arrived; his few excursions had been entirely on foot. This was warmer and drier and he wasn’t at risk of getting run over, but he wasn’t so certain he liked the way the thing rattled and jostled over the road. He was thankful they’d had a light dinner.

New York might have been called the City That Never Sleeps, but Xander thought they probably stole the name from London. It was past seven now and the streets were just as busy as they were midday, with no signs of slowing down. In fact the crowds grew thicker as they continued, until the carriage was moving at a crawl. In addition to pedestrians and the street hawkers William called costermongers, there were plenty more cabs, as well as larger coaches—both hired and private—and the long, double-decker carriages that William said were omnibuses.

They hadn’t actually gone very far when the cab pulled to a halt. The trap door opened and William passed some money through to the driver, and then the side doors opened as well. Xander and William climbed out. They were on a very narrow street with buildings looming over them on both sides. The neighborhood was decidedly more seedy than the Pratts’. Most of the shops seemed to be pubs, and the crowds here were more roughly dressed than near Great Russell Street. Men with flat caps on their heads and kerchiefs around their necks stood behind carts and wagons of fruits and pies and other food, all of them calling out at once in their incomprehensible Cockney accents.

“Peckish already?” William asked, noticing the way Xander was staring at a nearby cart.

“No. I was just trying to figure out what the hell he’s saying. Most of it doesn’t even sound like English, and the parts that are English don’t make any sense.”

“’T’s how I feel about half the rubbish comes out of your mouth, Xander,” William laughed, and towed Xander towards a narrow doorway tucked between The Rising Sun pub (advertising Burton’s Ales) and Worthington’s Bottle Shop. Xander had no idea how a theatre could be tucked into the tiny space, but the mystery was solved as they made their way down a long, gas-lit tunnel to a small vestibule where two other tunnels branched off. A man inspected their tickets. From there, they followed the crowd down a steep stairway and into the theatre itself.

The stage was raised above the noisy crowd. Around three sides of the large space, three tiers of box seats rose all the way to the ornately decorated ceiling. The theatre was furnished with red velvet upholstery, fringed golden curtains, and gilded carved pillars.

William seemed to know where he was going, so Xander followed closely behind him as they walked to another stairway. Again their tickets were checked, and they climbed to the second row and finally settled themselves in a comfortable box. They hung their overcoats on hooks at the back of the box and stowed their hats under the chairs.

“Wow!” Xander enthused. “Great seats!”

William beamed. “I decided to splurge a bit, seeing as this is your introduction to London theatre.”

“Thanks, Will. What are we seeing?” He’d been so busy gawping that he hadn’t noticed what the playbills said.

“It’s an operetta,” William began.

“Opera?” Xander said, probably with horror etched on his face.

“ _Operetta_. A comical one about pirates. It’s received excellent reviews since it began this spring, and I’ve been wanting to attend. It’s called _The Pirates of Penzance_.”

Xander sagged a little with relief. “Oh, _Pirates_. I like that one.”

William gave him an incredulous look. “You know it? It only premiered a few months ago.”

“Uh….” Shit. The truth was, Willow had owned a videotape of _Pirates_ starring Kevin Kline and Angela Lansbury and Linda Ronstadt, and they’d watched it with Jesse at least a dozen times when they were in about sixth grade. Now, William was still staring at him. “I mean, I _think_ I’ll like it. I heard about it somewhere. There’s a guy who’s apprenticed to be a pirate, right, and a major general who has a bunch of daughters.”

William narrowed his eyes. “You are a very strange man, Xander Harris.”

“I’ve been told that before.”

Just then, a young woman poked her head into the box. She had a tray of food of some kind, but William waved her away. Xander leaned forward and took a better look at the crowd. The people in the box seats were clearly more well off than the audience down below. The people in the pit looked a little rough and rowdy actually, which surprised Xander, who’d always thought of live theatre as sort of a highbrow thing. But these people were talking and laughing and eating in a way that reminded him of going to see a PG-13 flick back when he was a teenager.

The box seat crowd was slightly more sedate, although there was plenty of talking and eating and moving around going on up there, too. The men were mostly dressed pretty similarly to Xander and William, but the women wore flouncy, frilly dresses in every color imaginable, and little hats with lace and feathers. Out of the corner of his eye, Xander saw William staring at him, just watching him watch the crowd.

Then the lights dimmed and the orchestra began to play.

 

***

 

“Oh, better far to live and die under the brave black flag I fly, than play a sanctimonious part with a pirate head and a pirate heart!” William bellowed at the top of his lungs, and Xander laughed so hard he almost choked.

“You _are_ a pirate king,” Xander said when William paused to catch his breath. “And ‘tis a glorious thing.”

William laughed too, ignoring the stares of the passersby, and caught Xander’s elbow in his. “I rather expect I would fancy being a pirate king. The freedom to sail the seven seas—”

“Scurvy.”

“Wenches in every port.”

“Having to do the whole missing eye thing, which I assure you is no picnic.”

“Untold riches and adventure.”

“Walking the plank or being gibbeted.”

William slugged him in the shoulder with his free hand. “Spoilsport.” He looked at Xander with a smile so sunny it almost broke Xander’s heart. “I’m not at all of a mind to return home yet. You?”

“I’m game,” Xander said.

“Tonight I’d be of a mind to visit Cremorne Gardens, if they hadn’t been shut down in ’77. They were thought to be too disreputable, you see. Are you hungry? We could visit an oyster-shop or tavern by the Haymarket. Or perhaps we could go to a dance hall, or…I know!”

Xander was pulled down the sidewalk for several blocks. The streets were still crowded with people recently discharged from playhouses and other entertainments, and the smells of food and alcohol and perfumes mixed with the usual stenches of burning coal and horseshit and wet pavement and sewage. As they walked arm in arm, they sang bits and pieces from _Pirates_. Xander made William splutter helplessly when he attempted the song about the modern major-general, and, in turn, William made Xander just about piss his pants with a falsetto rendition of “Poor Wandering One.”

They were both breathless and slightly hysterical when they turned onto a quiet side street, and then into a restaurant of some kind. As soon as they went inside, Xander’s nose was filled with one of the most wonderful odors in the world. “Coffee!” he said, loud enough to make nearby heads turn.

With a chuckle, William hauled him to a table near the corner. “It’s a coffeehouse, isn’t it? Naturally they provide coffee. Or something a bit more…fortifying, if you’d rather.”

They hung their coats and hats on the rack beside their table. Within moments, a middle-aged man with muttonchop sideburns approached them. “Mr. Pratt! It’s been much too long since you’ve honored my establishment with your presence. How may I help you?”

“A coffee for Mr. Harris, I think.” Xander nodded, and William went on, “And something a bit stronger for me.”

“At once,” the man replied and bustled away.

“So this used to be your hangout?” Xander asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your…the place where you came to relax and drink and be social.”

“Oh. Yes. Some of my university chums frequented this place, as did some of the members of Mother’s social circle.”

“There was a place like that my friends and I used to go, when I was a kid. There was music, dancing—”

“There shall be no dancing here!” William interjected, looking slightly appalled.

“Yeah, I get that. This is a different kind of place. But still, not so different. How come you haven’t come lately?”

“I have…other interests.”

“Hmm.”

William fidgeted a little while they waited, and Xander looked around. There were about two dozen other customers in the place, all men, and they were clustered around tables in threes and fours. They seemed to be of about the same social class as William and they were all talking loudly, the kind of good-natured arguing that goes on among friends.

“It’s a nice place,” Xander announced after a while. “I like it.”

“In truth, coffeehouses have gone out of vogue. The wealthy have their clubs, you know.”

The proprietor came by then with a tray. He plunked a cup of fragrant coffee in front of Xander, and also little silver dishes containing milk and sugar. William got a glass full of amber liquid. “To friendship,” William said, lifting his drink, and Xander grinned and clinked his cup against it.

The coffee was wonderful. He’d kind of got used to tea over the past few weeks, mostly out of self-preservation, but he still preferred beans to leaves. For his part, William seemed pretty happy with his whiskey.

“So, what are your thoughts on London thus far?” William asked after a while.

“It’s…it’s amazing. Never seen anyplace like it. It’s _nothing_ like where I come from.”

“Ah, but you’re being quite politic with your words, Xander. Do you _like_ it?”

“Some parts of it, yeah. I like them a lot. That play was really great, and…and I’ve enjoyed the company, too,” he added a little shyly.

He was rewarded with a huge grin. But then William tilted his head inquisitively. “And some bits of London you don’t care for, I take it?”

“Honestly? Yeah. I mean the weather. Do you ever see the sun? And the air! How have you not all died from lung disease? And there’s a lot of poor people—”

William interrupted.

 _  
“Hell is a city much like London—  
_

 _  
A populous and smoky city;  
_

 _  
There all sorts of people are undone.  
_

 _  
And there is little or no fun done;  
_

 _  
Small justice shown, and still less pity.”  
_

Xander nodded enthusiastically. “That’s really good, Will!”

But William rolled his eyes. “It’s not mine, glock. Shelley.”

Xander took a swallow of his coffee, which was still hot. “Sounds like Shelley was a cheery sort.”

“Poor sod drowned before he was thirty. I expect now he knows whether the afterlife really is like London.”

“It isn’t,” Xander said without thinking.

William sat back in his chair with a slow smile. “More prognostication, is it?”

“Something like that.” Xander smiled back. This evening he was seeing more and more of Spike in William, instead of the momentary glimpses he’d had before. That surprised him in two ways. First, because some of the personality quirks he’d always blamed on the demon had turned out to originate from the man instead. And second, because he _liked_ those Spikish moments.

“Poets haven’t much fancied London, you know,” William said. “Blake wrote:

 _  
I wander thro' each charter'd street,  
_

 _  
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,  
_

 _  
And mark in every face I meet  
_

 _  
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.”  
_

He looked down at his glass, which was empty. “It’s confining, this city. All this humanity jammed together and none of them caring for one another, not truly. They care about wealth and position and bloody _titles_ , not what’s real. Is it different in America, where you’ve so much open space?”

Xander shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re pretty much all about the money most of the time, too. But I’ve seen some people do some damned incredible things for the sake of others.”

William sighed wistfully. “I should so like to see it for myself. It’s a new continent, isn’t it? For me, at any rate. Perhaps I’d be more…suited for the American climate. In California, where even the nights are warm, I’ll wager.”

“Sometimes. Warmer than here,” Xander agreed.

“Then here’s another verse for you. Wordsworth, this time:

 _  
Who would ‘go parading’  
_

 _  
In London, ‘and masquerading,’  
_

 _  
On such a night of June  
_

 _  
With that beautiful soft half-moon,  
_

 _  
And all these innocent blisses?  
_

 _  
On such a night as this is!”  
_

They were smiling gently at each other, so that neither of them noticed the two men who approached the table. The taller one said, “Oh no! Is William the Bloody torturing people with his poetry again?”

The shorter one, who was fat and had beady eyes, guffawed and clapped the tall one on the back, as if that statement had been the height of wit.

William glared at them and then hunched into himself without saying a word.

“You haven’t introduced us to your friend, Pratt,” the tall one said.

William didn’t bother to look up. “Xander, this is Powell and Barker. Powell, Barker, Xander Harris,” he mumbled.

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Harris,” said the tall one, who seemed to be Powell. Barker nodded his head in agreement, and if ever Xander had seen a sidekick, Barker was it.

“Hey,” Xander replied noncommittally.

Powell had an oily smile. “You must be the American Mr. Harris about whom we have been hearing so much of late. Please, would you do us the honor of joining us at our table?” He gestured across the room.

Xander noted that William wasn’t included in the invitation. William noted that too—he slumped even more.

Xander smiled evilly. “Naw; thanks, but I’m pretty satisfied with the company I’ve got.”

William perked up slightly at that, but Powell wasn’t through. “Truly? Perhaps Pratt here has been attempting to convince you that the drivel he writes is representative of the English, but if you join us, we can demonstrate what a true Englishman is like.”

What Xander wanted to do was sock the asshole right in his pointed nose. Instead, he frowned a little, like he was confused. “Are you sure you’re talking about the right guy, dude? Or maybe…. Oh, man! I bet he’s been too modest to say anything.” He shook his head in chastisement at William, but William only looked at him like he’d gone insane.

Powell and Barker were confused, too. “Modest, Mr. Harris? I’m sure you’re mistaken. What you may have taken for modesty or humility on Pratt’s part is simply a reflection of his rather…humble situation.”

Xander’s hands had balled into fists. He hadn’t been in a good fight for a really, really long time, and he ached for the feel of knuckles smashing into cartilage. He turned his fake smile up a notch. “Geez, he really does keep a low profile. Will, you old dog, you! Buddy, in California this guy is famous! Someone got hold of these bootleg copies of his poems and published them, and now he’s the total talk of New York and San Francisco. He’s kind of this mysterious figure, too. Everybody’s all, ‘William Pratt, who _is_ that man?’ That’s why I came all the way here—to solve the mystery, to meet the man, to see if I can persuade him to come to the US. I’ve got people from coast to coast ready to line up speaking engagements for him as soon as he says the word.”

All three of the other men were staring at him with their mouths hanging open. Xander sat back in his chair, satisfied with himself.

Powell recovered first. “You’re jesting, Mr. Harris.”

Xander stood. Powell might be tall, but Xander was more muscular, and he knew how to hold himself like a big bad. Or, well, medium bad. Getting in Powell’s face, he growled, “Us Americans _never_ joke about money or poetry.” He debated momentarily between John Wayne and Robert DeNiro, before settling on a mixture of both, with maybe a dash of Heston thrown in. “You doubting my word, buddy? ‘Cause I’m prepared to open a big old can of whoop-ass if you insult Mr. Pratt one more time.” He narrowed his eyes, like he used to when he was facing down the demon du jour and trying to look like he wasn’t scared shitless.

Barker squealed slightly and actually tried to hide behind his pal. Which was ridiculous, given their respective girths. Powell shut his mouth and leaned forward until he and Xander were almost touching, but Xander didn’t flinch. He’d stared down a lot bigger monsters than this jackass. And Powell maybe saw something deep in Xander, because his eyes went very wide and he backed up so suddenly he almost fell over Barker.

“Pardon me,” he muttered.

Xander let his face split into a malicious smile. “I think you’re apologizing to the wrong guy, partner.”

With a slight shudder, Powell turned towards William, who’d been watching the whole thing like a sporting match. “My apologies,” Powell said, and he actually gave a small bow. And then, as quickly as his long legs would take him, he hurried across the room, grabbed his coat and hat and, shoving them on crookedly, rushed out the door. Barker was right behind, struggling to keep up.

Xander sighed and collapsed back into his chair.

“What the bloody hell was _that_?” William asked.

“A couple of pricks getting a small taste of what they deserve. I kinda regret that I didn’t pop him one, though.”

“Pop him?”

“Smash his smug, ugly face in. Really, Will. What a pair of losers. You are so out of their league.”

“I’ve no idea what you mean to say. Again.”

Xander reached across the table and grabbed William’s hand, which had been toying with his empty glass. “I mean, William, that you are a really great guy. You’re smart and funny and perceptive and passionate. You’re worth a hundred Powells and Barkers. Look, a century from now, nobody’s gonna remember them. They’ll be dusty bones and crumbling headstones. But folks are gonna know you. I guarantee it.”

“For my poems? Xander, perhaps our friendship has blinded you a bit, or you’ve—”

“Not blind here, Will. Not even half-blind, not anymore. And it has nothing to do with the poetry, either. I’m talking about you. The man William Pratt. He’s something else, and if people like that fucker don’t see it, it’s because they’re the blind ones.”

William had gone very pale as Xander spoke, and he wasn’t meeting Xander’s eyes at all. Xander waited for a response. After a very long time, William whispered, “I believe I require another drink.”

 

***

 

William was staggering slightly on the way home, and sometimes leaning against Xander for support. Which was okay, because Xander was buzzed on caffeine and on the joy of having had a pretty good night. Besides, Xander secretly treasured the way the other man’s body felt against his. He liked knowing that whatever else happened to William—or Spike—in his long existence, this night he was so happy he was _giggling_ and humming nineteenth-century show tunes and his face was bright with the knowledge that he had a true friend.

Xander refused to remind himself that said true friend was going to betray this beautiful, complex man very soon.

The coffeehouse wasn’t very far from the Pratt home. There was some fumbling with the keys, but William managed to get them inside. Maggie must have heard them because she greeted them in the foyer in her nightgown and bathrobe and cap, looking half asleep and entirely annoyed.

“Go back to sleep, Mag,” William said too loudly. “We can manage without you.”

“Shh! You’ll wake your mother,” Xander warned.

William looked only slightly chastened before he gave Xander a crooked grin. “Sorry.”

Xander turned to Maggie, who was frowning with indecision. “It’s fine, Maggie. Go back to bed. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

She pursed her lips doubtfully, cast a glance at William—who was swaying a little as he stood—and then sighed. “All right, sir. But if you’re needing any ‘elp....”

“I’ll carry him upstairs if I have to. Goodnight, Maggie.”

“’Night, Mag,” William chimed in cheerfully. She shook her head and then walked away.

Xander didn’t have to carry William up the stairs. Not quite, anyway. But he did have to steer the man towards his own bedroom when William seemed fixated on the idea that Xander’s room was his. Xander yanked off William’s hat and topcoat, then pushed him gently onto the mattress to remove his shoes. All the while, William smiled blearily at him.

“I think you’re just gonna have to sleep in the rest,” Xander said, eyeing all the layers of clothing William still wore.

“You’re a good friend, Xander Harris. A bloke who’s there when he’s needed.”

“Yeah, I’m a real stand-up guy.” Xander pushed at William’s shoulders until William lay flat, then sort of heaved him up and around so his legs were on the bed and his head on the pillow. That left the blankets pinned underneath him, but he probably wasn’t going to freeze under all that wool and silk.

“My bes’ friend,” William slurred happily.

“Thanks. I’m…I really do like you, you know. Didn’t expect to, but there you go. I hope that matters to you someday. Probably won’t.”

William obviously had no idea what Xander was talking about, which was just as well.

“’Night, Sp—Will,” Xander said and started to turn away.

But with almost vampire-like speed, William shot his hand out and grabbed Xander’s wrist. He tugged—hard—and Xander was so taken by surprise that he toppled right onto him. That didn’t upset William at all. In fact, it seemed that Xander on top of him had been his goal, because as soon as their bodies were in contact, William wrapped his hands around the back of Xander’s head and brought their faces together.

Their lips met and their teeth clacked together painfully. William tasted like the inside of a whiskey bottle, and he was either not very practiced at kissing or too drunk to do it well, because it was a sloppy kiss, all slobber and tangling tongues. But it was so sweet, so fucking wonderful, and for a second Xander let it go, let himself melt against William and allowed his fingers to drift into William’s wild hair and clutch it as tightly as William was clutching his.

William made a small sound, an almost animal-like whimper.

And Xander remembered who they were and what he was doing and, as gently as possible, managed to extricate himself from William’s grip.

“Don’t go,” William said, his eyes gone big and his lips slightly swollen.

“Oh, pal, I don’t want to. But you’re wasted and…and I don’t want you to hate me in the morning. Not yet.”

“Could never hate you.”

Xander couldn’t help himself. He reached out and stroked William’s cheek with his fingertips. “Good night, Will,” he said. And he turned and left the room.

[Chapter Seven](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/220827.html)

  



	7. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
_  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (7/12)**   
_

  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 7 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

  
 

 **Seven**

 

Xander wasn’t the one who should have felt hungover in the morning. He hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, unless you counted the lingering bits of it that were in William’s mouth when they’d kissed.

Oh, Christ. When they’d kissed.

And that was why Xander’s head was pounding when he woke up, because they’d kissed the night before. And yeah, the kiss had been William’s idea but he was completely blotto at the time, and it wasn’t as if Xander had put up a fight. In fact, Xander had been downright participatory. And he’d been dead sober.

Xander groaned and sat up in bed. He pulled the covers up to his chin because his room was cold in the mornings and he’d learned to dread the time between when he emerged from his toasty bedding and when he managed to swap the pajamas for layers of cotton and wool. But the blankets didn’t insulate him from reality, and the harsh truth was that he was falling for William. He couldn’t even fool himself into believing it was just a physical thing, a byproduct of having been starved for touch for a very long time, because he was starting to crave William’s brilliant smiles, to hoard the times they spent together the way a dragon hoards treasure.

Goddamn it, this wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair to Xander, and it sure as hell wasn’t fair to William.

Xander could leave. He could say the magic word right now and be back on his island. The island was peaceful, wasn’t it? And he wasn’t hurting anyone there, wasn’t seducing a good man into friendship and then betraying him. He could go back and then William would stay William, and Spike would never rise…and the fucking world would end in 2003.

He squeezed his eyes shut like a child trying to hide. Maybe he wouldn’t have a choice. Maybe when William remembered that kiss he’d throw Xander out on his ass. Maybe he’d come crashing into Xander’s room any minute—

And completely on cue, the door _did_ slam open and William came stomping in wearing his striped silk pajamas. He looked furious. If he’d been a vampire already, Xander would have scrambled for the nearest pointy wood object, because William was out for blood.

“Will, I—” Xander began.

But he never finished because William grabbed his shoulders and yanked him close, then bent his head down so that their lips connected again.

This kiss had slightly more finesse but no less passion than the night before. William clutched him just as fiercely and again Xander’s hands—stupid, treacherous hands—rose and landed on the slippery, warm fabric that covered William’s back.

When they broke apart, gasping, Xander said, “What—”

But again William interrupted. “I wanted to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“It wasn’t the drink. It wasn’t— It was _me_ , Xander. It was us. I wanted you. Want you. Have for some time.”

“But…but….” Xander sputtered like a motorboat. “But you don’t like guys!”

“How do you know whom I like? Your fortune-telling has failed you this time, has it not?”

Xander shook his head, wanting to protest. But what could he say? That Spike bonked Dru and Harmony and Buffy, but no boys? Well, no boys that Xander knew of anyway, and it suddenly occurred to him that there were many things about Spike’s years before Sunnydale that Xander didn’t know. “What about Cecily?” he said finally, lamely.

William made a face. “Cecily’s lovely. But so are you. I…I’m like you, don’t you see? Fancying both.” He looked away. “You’re not the first man I’ve…noticed.”

Xander suppressed a groan. He grabbed one of William’s hands and squeezed. “Look, I’m…I’m flattered. I really am. And if the circumstances were different…. But they’re not. Will, I’m not who you think I am.”

With narrowed eyes, William swung his head to look at him again. “You’re not my friend?”

“I am! I am your friend. But…I’m not…I’m not a nice guy. I haven’t been straight with you since I arrived, and I won’t be. I _can’t_ be. I’m no good for you.”

“I’m not stupid. I’ve known for ages that your tale about running into my chum in New York was false. In case you haven’t noticed, Xander, I haven’t any friends, certainly none who would turn a stranger my way.”

“Then why have you let me stay?”

“Because you intrigue me. You’re quite the most extraordinary person I have ever met. I’ve no idea what you mean to do with me, but I like you. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t,” Xander said. He released William’s hand and, untangling himself from the blankets, lurched to his feet, then pushed past William on the way to the WC.

 

***

 

Xander avoided William for the rest of the day. Maybe William avoided him too; he couldn’t tell. Xander worked on the topmost floor, where everything was liberally coated in dust and cobwebs and apparently unexplored since the Norman Conquest. He had taken one good look at the situation up there and had run back down to change into his old jeans and tee, clothing that could better handle getting filthy than could the nice suits William had bought him. There was considerable water damage to the ceiling; Xander swore, knowing he would have to check out the condition of the roof. If he had time, that was.

He spent the entire day on the top floor, except for mid-afternoon when he crept down to the kitchen for something to eat. There was no sign of William, but Maggie was there kneading dough and she gave him one of her more skeptical looks. “You’ve made a right mess of yourself, Mr. ‘Arris.”

“You have no idea how true that is,” he sighed in response.

She shook her head and gathered a plate of food for him. He wolfed it quickly, not even bothering to sit down, before escaping back upstairs.

He worked until it was so dark he couldn’t see what the hell he was doing—there were no gaslights up there—then, sore and tired, he made his way down to his room. As he went, he was wondering if he wanted to bug Maggie to heat him a bath or whether a basin of warm water would do, and he was yearning for the joys of twenty-first-century plumbing. But just before he made it to his room, William popped out of _his_ room as if he’d been lying in wait.

“Mother shall have guests for dinner tomorrow,” William said, his voice neutral, his face carefully blank. “She has requested your presence.”

“I….” He wanted to refuse. But it was bad enough already what he was doing to the Pratts. At least he could attend a dinner party. “Okay, Will. I’ll be there.”

William nodded shortly and ducked back into his room.

Xander ate dinner alone that night, sitting at the worn table in the kitchen. The table he’d fixed a couple weeks earlier, replacing a leg that was cracked and splintery. Maggie disapproved—of the solo meal, not the furniture repair—and she eyed him balefully as she plopped a dish down in front of him. “You ain’t the ‘elp, Mr. ‘Arris. You ought ta be eatin’ with them.”

“I will tomorrow. I just…I’m still pretty grungy, actually, and I’m wiped. I’m going to eat and then turn in.” All of which was true.

But she clucked her tongue and turned around to scrub viciously at a pan.

“Maggie?” he ventured after a few minutes. “What should I wear tomorrow night?”

She snorted at him. With her back still to him, she said, “Mr. Pratt could tell ya.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he could. But I think…he’s busy. Please, Mag?”

“I’ll lay somethin’ out for ya.”

“Thanks.”

He finished his dinner in silence and then, just as he’d said, went upstairs to sleep.

 

***

 

He didn’t go up to the top floor the next day, mostly because Maggie had whisked away his jeans and tee, and they were undoubtedly getting cleaned in the same mysterious way as the rest of the household’s laundry. He suspected that everything got sent out, probably to one of the many tradespeople who came to call every week, but he hadn’t bothered to find out. It was just kind of nice not to have to think about laundry.

He could have found something to do elsewhere in the house, but he was afraid of running into William. Since he felt a little restless—and since it was actually not raining out, although the sky was still leaden and the air chill—he bundled up and went outside for a stroll.

Other than his brief outings with William, he really hadn’t explored at all. He wasn’t here to be a tourist, after all. But the city was a fascinating place, really, and it was interesting to see the ways in which it was different—and the ways in which it wasn’t—from the London where he’d spent several twenty-first-century months.

At least now he could get around without being run over, and without attracting the stares of everyone else.

Number 43 was in a good neighborhood, but if he walked in one direction the houses became grander. Bigger, fancier, more ostentatious. In another direction, though, things went quickly downhill: overcrowded streets prowled by underdressed, hungry-looking children, and adults whose faces were gaunt and careworn or blurry with gin. Some of them looked at him the way predators size up potential prey, so he turned around again, back to familiar ground.

He ended up in the British Museum after all, because it was just around the corner from the Pratts’ place and his nose was starting to drip with the cold. And he didn’t have any money to sit in a coffeehouse or pub and try to warm up. The museum was different than he remembered it—smaller and without that big, glassed-in area around the Reading Room. But there was the Rosetta Stone, ancient even now, and all the big chunks of stuff from Egypt and Rome and Greece. He should have come to the museum with William, he thought. Yeah, he’d had that Giles tour, but Xander was willing to bet that William would have been able to tell him in detail about everything in the museum. William’s stories would have been interesting and sort of funny, and William would have really loved playing guide.

Xander stayed in the museum until fairly late. He’d skipped lunch altogether, and his stomach was unhappy with him. He made the short walk home in the gathering dusk.

To his surprise, it was William who answered his knock, not Maggie. William looked so distressed that for a moment Xander was certain something had happened to Mrs. Pratt. “What is it, Will?” he asked, stepping into the house and shutting the door.

“I thought perhaps….” William wasn’t looking at him. “Thought perhaps you’d gone.”

“I went for a walk. A long one. Seeing the sights and all.”

William’s jaw was clenched so tightly it must have hurt, and he nodded curtly. “You mean to stay, then?”

“If I can. For a little while, anyway.”

Xander thought William relaxed a little at that. God, Xander fervently wished that he could sweep the man into his arms and burrow his face into that soft hair, that he could promise love and fidelity. Could make William know he was wanted, he was worthy. Instead, Xander did an awkward little shuffle to get past him in the narrow foyer. “I guess I’d better dress for dinner,” Xander said.

As she’d promised, Maggie had set an outfit on his bed. It was the same one he’d worn to the theatre, although instead of a bow tie there was a dark red scarf thing that he realized unhappily was probably a fucking ascot. He wouldn’t have to wear the overcoat, of course, or the stupid hat. He was halfway dressed before he snarled in disgust at the tie, and then stomped across the hall and pounded on William’s door.

William was in his shirtsleeves when he answered. “Yes?”

Wordlessly, Xander held the ascot towards him.

The corner of William’s mouth quirked up in the ghost of a smile as he took the fabric. “I’m beginning to think you run around naked all the time in California.”

“Some of us do, practically. You should see Venice Beach.”

“Venice?”

“Not the Italy one. This one has more bikinis.”

“What’s a…bikini?”

“It’s…oh, never mind.”

William’s tiny grin turned up one notch and he reached around Xander’s neck to put the ascot in place. They stood so close their chests almost touched, very carefully avoiding one another’s eyes. But there was something incredibly intimate about having another person dress him like this, and he could feel William’s breaths puffing against him, hear the tiniest hitch in William’s lungs when skin accidentally contacted skin.

“That’s sorted,” William said, lightly patting Xander’s sternum. He took a half-step back.

Xander looked down at himself. “How come you can pull this look off and I just look like an idiot?”

The smile disappeared from William’s face. “You look far from idiotic, Xander,” he said, and he ducked back into his own room and closed the door.

That morning, Maggie had informed Xander that dinner would be at eight. At precisely 8:04—William had bought him a pocket watch the previous week—Xander made his way downstairs. The Pratts were already gathered in a formal drawing room that was used only with visitors, and about eight other men and women were there as well. They all turned to look at him as he entered and conversations stopped abruptly. Xander froze in the doorway.

But Mrs. Pratt came sailing over to him in a silk dress that was so deeply purple as to be almost black, and William was right on her heels. Mrs. Pratt grasped one of Xander’s hands and practically dragged him into the room. “I’m so very pleased you were able to join us, Mr. Harris. Please, let me introduce you.” And she took his arm and towed him around the room.

He shook all the men’s hands and gave a sort of spastic half bow to the women, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. Most of the names went right past him. But one name he definitely noticed. “Mr. Harris, this is Miss Cecily Underwood,” Mrs. Pratt said.

Xander had a good look at her and couldn’t help but gasp. “Halfrek!” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.

She went very, very pale, and he was certain he was going to get turned into a troll or a giant worm. But then William stepped in, placing himself slightly between them. “You’ll have to excuse him, Miss Underwood. He pops out with the strangest utterances. I expect it means ‘pleased to meet you’ in American.”

For a long, long moment, Xander and Halfrek—well, Cecily, he guessed—stared at each other. Then the corners of her mouth raised in a forced little smile, and Xander exhaled in relief. “Yeah, um, sorry,” he said. “It’s a saying. All the cool kids are using it back home. I learned it from my former fiancée, Anyanka.”

Her eyes went very round and William huffed in irritation. “Come along, Xander. Let me introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Townsend.”

Cecily gave Xander a look that made it clear she intended to talk to him later, in private, and Xander let the Pratts drag him over to a stout, middle-aged couple with matching red noses.

For thirty minutes or so, Xander tried his best to make polite conversation. He fielded questions about the US and about his impressions of England. He continued the ruse that William had begun with his mother: that Xander was there on behalf of his publisher father. He thought that maybe news of his little encounter with Powell and Barker at the coffee house had spread, because some of the guests nodded knowledgeably and asked him whether he’d persuaded William to go on that lecture tour yet, and whether William was yet as popular in the States as that Walt Whitman gentleman. William basked under what was clearly an unusual amount of positive attention, while his mother positively glowed with pride. At least, Xander thought, she wouldn’t be around long enough to learn it was all a lie.

It seemed like days since Xander had eaten, and he was very thankful when William took Mrs. Pratt’s arm and they led everyone into the dining room. There were little cards at each place, saying who was supposed to sit there. William was at the head of the table with Cecily to his left and Xander to his right, and Mrs. Pratt was at the other end. Everybody had a menu, too, in fancy script, but most of it seemed to be in French so Xander gave up trying to figure out what they were going to eat. He was hungry enough to eat a horse—and he wasn’t at all sure that that wasn’t exactly what he would be eating. The napkins were finely embroidered linen, and Xander followed William’s lead and spread his on his lap.

Mrs. Pratt had apparently hired some extra help for the evening, because two men and two women Xander didn’t know entered from the kitchen and began to serve little plates of oysters. Xander wasn’t a huge shellfish fan, actually, but he was both famished and polite, so he dug in. He washed it down with some wine.

Soon the oyster shells were whisked away, to be replaced with soup. “Clear or thick, sir?” one of the male servants asked.

“Um…thick?”

The soup was good. As Xander tried not to slurp, Cecily gave him a narrow-eyed glance and then angled herself towards William. “So, William,” she said in a slightly breathless voice, very different from the one he remembered, “have you been writing very much of late?” She leaned in close to him, as if to hang on every word.

Before Xander could hear William’s response, the young woman next to Xander turned to him and smiled. She had the longest neck he had ever seen on a human being, and sort of a bulbous nose, and a mouth that turned down at the corners even when she tried to smile. “Mr. Harris! You must tell me about the latest fashions for ladies in California!”

He craned his head, trying to read her place card unobtrusively. “I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask, Miss Walker. You know how guys are—we don’t really pay much attention to stuff like that.”

“Oh, nonsense! Surely you must have noticed what the young ladies are wearing. Tell me, is the bustle quite in fashion?”

“Um, no. Definitely no bustles.”

“And the sleeves? Are they bell-shaped or snug? I do so think they’re more flattering when they’re snug, don’t you?”

“Yeah, snug is good, I guess. California girls like snug.”

She nodded firmly. “And the necklines?”

He was saved from having to answer when William touched his arm. “Xander, do you like the soup?” he asked politely.

“Yeah. It’s really good. And I never quite got around to eating lunch today.”

“What do you eat when you’re at home? I expect you must have many exotic foods.”

“Uh, sure. Let’s see, I eat a lot of Chinese food—”

“Chinese?” William’s eyebrows had risen. “Exotic indeed!”

“I guess so. And Mexican—”

“What does one eat in Mexico?”

“I don’t know. Never been there. But in California we eat tacos and burritos and chimichangas and tequila. Well, we drink tequila. In this town I lived in for a while there was this great Mexican place, El Jardin, and they had chicken mole that I would have killed for, and this fish thing they did with fried plantains.” Man, he missed Mexican food. He paused for a minute, trying to figure out how to explain chiles relleno.

But Cecily glared at him and placed one of her hands on one of William’s. “William, Leticia Hawkings related to me that she saw the most delightful pantomime last week—”

“That’s lovely,” William said absently, pulling his hand away. Turning back to Xander, he said, “Upon your advice, I’ve decided we shall paint the room that had the poor wainscoting. Have you an opinion on the color? I was thinking perhaps a forest green.”

“Green is nice,” Xander replied, and then Edith Walker was tugging on his sleeve, asking him whether he thought she had quite the right length of necklace on, compared to ladies in California, and whether they were wearing their hair up or down, and with what sorts of hats. At the same time, Cecily was going on about some play, and broadly hinting that she’d really like to attend.

The servants took away the empty soup bowls and replaced them with little dishes of radishes and olives and almonds. After that came fish and potatoes, then mushrooms, then something that looked like a pastry but proved to contain spinach, and then so many more courses that Xander completely lost count. And the entire time, there was a very strange tug of war going on, in which Edith tried to monopolize Xander and Cecily yapped at William, but William kept blowing her off and talking to Xander instead. Xander didn’t say much. He figured he was safest if he stared at his plates and shoveled food in his mouth.

Dinner took so long that when the plates that had held dried fruits and crystallized ginger were finally taken away, he was slightly surprised to still find himself in the nineteenth century. William and Mrs. Pratt stood, William took her arm again, and the entire party rolled back into the drawing room where there were little tables with liqueurs and cognac and, mercifully, coffee. The guests stood around, talking quietly and drinking. A few of the men disappeared for a while and then returned, smelling like cigars.

William stuck very close by Xander’s side, butting into the conversation whenever the others said more than about three words in a row to Xander. Xander didn’t mind. But he was a little worried when he glanced over and saw Cecily in the corner, whispering something into Mrs. Pratt’s ear.

Mrs. Pratt nodded, smiled widely and clapped her hands. “Pardon me! Pardon me!” she said, loudly enough to get everyone’s attention. “I do hope you’ll excuse the interruption, but dear Cecily has just had the most delightful idea.” She walked across the room and put a hand on William’s shoulder. “Darling, would you please entertain us with some of your newest poems?”

William appeared as if he wasn’t certain how to answer, but then Cecily chimed in, “Please, William? I simply must hear your latest. You wouldn’t want your friends to be deprived of the pleasures permitted to those in the United States, would you?” Her smile looked positively evil, Xander thought.

William turned towards Xander, as if Xander had any say in it. Then he gave a little shrug. “Very well. Excuse me for a moment and I shall go fetch my papers.”

Mrs. Pratt patted him approvingly. As William left the room with a last glance at Xander, everyone else settled down on chairs and sofas, most of them with a glass in hand. Xander took a chair with a carved wooden back and a plush green velvet seat. Mrs. Pratt sat, too, but began to cough. She pulled a scrap of embroidered cloth from somewhere and covered her mouth. She’d recovered and tucked the cloth away by the time William returned.

He stood in front of them with the fire roaring and popping behind him. He was wearing his glasses. Absurd things with small round lenses and a thin golden frame, and he looked so fucking edible in them that Xander had to close his eyes for a few seconds. “Ahem,” William said, rattling the papers in his hand. “I’m not certain which of these you would fancy hearing. I’m still working on some of them—they’re a bit rough, you see.”

“Read us a love poem, William,” Cecily called out. Xander wanted to strangle her.

“All…all right,” William stammered, his face reddening a little. “If I must.” He shuffled through his papers before pulling one out and shoving the rest into a coat pocket. He peered nervously at the quiet audience and cleared his throat a few times. When his gaze landed on Xander, Xander smiled as encouragingly as he could, thinking to himself that he’d tear out the throat of the first person that laughed at William.

“It hasn’t a title yet,” William said, and he began to read:

 _“Now I see with eyes so clear_

 _The one whom my heart holds so dear;_

 _One who’s trapped my battered soul_

 _And made me feel that I am whole._

 _One with countenance so fair,_

 _My ravaged spirit seeks to repair._

 _A dark-haired beauty, shining bright_

 _With kindness, goodness, angelic light._

 _But love, rejected, cannot shine;_

 _I wait until this love is mine.”_

As William read, infusing the words with every bit of emotion he felt, Xander could see Cecily preening, smiling at the poetry like a cat who’d caught a mouse. When William got to the line about dark hair, she reached up and patted at her own curly tresses.  


But when William finished, and the room was very still, he let the hand with the papers fall to his side, and it wasn’t Cecily he looked at.

After another hushed moment, everyone clapped politely, if not enthusiastically. William removed his glasses and slid them into his pocket. His eyes were glistening, his jaw locked tight. He took a very deep breath, as if to steady himself. “Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I do believe I’ve come over quite ill of a sudden.” And he fled the room.

After a long moment of awkward silence, the guests began to stand. They gave hurried goodbyes to Xander and then thanked Mrs. Pratt and left. For her part, she looked confused and a little tired.

Cecily was the last to leave. She captured Xander’s arm in hers and insisted that he walk her to the door. When they got there, he waited impatiently for her to put on the coat and hat and gloves that Maggie handed her. When Maggie left, Cecily stepped up very close to him. “I don’t know what game you’re playing—”

“It’s not a game,” was all he could say in response.

She shook her head angrily. “We shall have a discussion, you and I. Meet me tomorrow at two at Pritchard’s coffeehouse. Do you know where that is?”

“No.”

“It’s only a short walk from here, on Bloomsbury Square. Come by yourself.”

He must have looked hesitant, because she added, “You know what I am?”

With a sigh, he said, “Vengeance demon.”

“Then you know not to disappoint me.”

“Yeah, I…I kinda got that. I’ll see you at two.”

She gave him one last glare and then swept out the door and into the night.

[Chapter Eight](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/221057.html)

  



	8. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 8 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (8/12)**   
_

**Eight**

 

Xander stood in the foyer for a very long time, not noticing that he was shivering from the cold that seeped in under the door. He’d screwed things up. He’d been sent here with a simple directive—make sure William got chomped—and he’d fucked it up; it was now pretty clear that whatever crush William might once have had on Cecily was now aimed at Xander. And why the hell was Halfrek involved?

What would happen if Xander went back to the island now? Would William remain human and die a regular death of typhoid or something, so that there was nothing to stop the First in 130 years? Or would he turn back to Cecily, be scorned, and get vamped after all?

The only thing Xander knew for sure was that his own heart was breaking.

“You’ll catch a terrible chill, dear.”

Xander hadn’t heard Mrs. Pratt coming up behind him and he startled slightly. “Sorry. I was just…thinking.”

She tilted her head to peer at him, suddenly looking very much like her son.

He shivered again and then shook his head to clear it. “Mrs. Pratt, this draft can’t be good for you either. Let’s go someplace warmer. And tomorrow I’m gonna put a draft-stopper on this door.”

“It’s time for me to retire,” she said, but she took his arm and walked with him toward the stairway. At the bottom of the stairs, they stopped and she smiled up at him. “Xander—may I call you that?”

“Of course.”

“You’re a good man, Xander. William has been happier these past weeks than he has been for years. Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t thank me, Mrs. Pratt. You…you really shouldn’t.”

She reached up and pushed a lock of hair out of his face. Tenderly, like a mother. “I worry so about my William. I’m all he has, and I’m…well, I shan’t always be here. I don’t want him to be alone, Xander.”

“Mrs. Pratt—”

“Go. Go find him. I believe he’s in his room now, and I expect he needs some comfort. Go to him, Xander.” She stroked him again, light fingertips against his cheek, and then turned and walked down the hall towards her room.

 

***

 

William’s door was closed. Xander spent a long time standing just outside it, his fist raised, not knocking. Finally, he decided that since he’d already fucked things up so royally, and since he had no fucking clue what he should do about it, he might as well just go with what he wanted to do. He rapped softly on the door.

There was no answer for what felt like hours, but he could almost sense William standing inside the room, only the width of the door separating them. Just as he was lifting his hand to knock again, the door opened.

William had begun to undress. His pants were still on but his coat and vest and tie and shoes were gone, and his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing the wool undershirt beneath it. His hair was snarled into wild curls, even worse than it got when he was worrying over a phrase of poetry. His face was pale except for hectic circles on his cheeks, as if he had a fever, and his eyes were very bright. He didn’t say anything.

“Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, William stepped aside, then shut the door after Xander entered.

Xander had been in William’s room only briefly before. Now he looked around quickly, noting the dark wood furniture—less fussy than in most of the rest of the house—and the piles of books and papers everywhere, and the fine clothing discarded on the floor as if its owner had thrown it off in a rage. The window in this room looked out over the street and there was an armchair in front of it, which made Xander suspect that William spent a good bit of time sitting there, watching the world. He wished he could tell William to get out and enjoy the daylight as much as he could, while he still could. He’d have plenty of time to lurk indoors later.

It was William who spoke first, which was good, because Xander had no idea what to say. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you.”

Xander turned from the window to look at him. “You didn’t.”

“What you told me earlier, about being…being a deviant. You weren’t jesting?”

“Why the hell would I jest about that?”

“But you don’t…you don’t want me.”

“Will, it’s not…. It’s not that, okay? If things were different…well, if things were different you’d rip my head off for kissing you. But—”

“You find me repugnant.”

“No! Jesus Christ, no. You’re _beautiful_ , Will. You’re— God, you don’t know how badly I want to put my hands on you.”

William flushed a little and took a step closer. “Then your reluctance is not physical.”

“No. Definitely not physical.” Xander swallowed thickly, because William was looking at him as if he might be considering Xander for midnight snack, and Xander _liked_ that look.

“Then…it’s my finances. My family’s descent into poverty. I could find a position, Xander, as a solicitor, or perhaps I could lecture. We wouldn’t be destitute.”

“I don’t give a shit about money, Will. Hell, I don’t own one single thing that you haven’t bought for me.”

A step closer, so that William was almost within reach. “It’s my poetry then, is it? You’ve been very kind, but I know it’s rubbish. I can stop writing—”

“No!” Xander repeated. “I’d never ask you to do that, and anyway, I really do like to hear you read it.”

One more step, and now Xander could see the details of William’s face—the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, which would never have the chance to get any deeper, his unscarred eyebrows, his full lower lip, those deep blue eyes, the hair that Xander knew was soft and thick. “Perhaps it’s my inexperience, then. I am aware that you are more worldly than I. But I am quite willing to be…tutored.”

Xander’s knees felt weak. And he was having trouble drawing air into his lungs. “Will, God…Will.”

“Why won’t you have me?” William asked, his voice deep and raspy, his pupils huge enough to fall into. “Do you feel I’m beneath you?”

Xander grabbed William’s shoulders, maybe more to keep himself grounded than anything else. “You’re not…you’re not beneath me.”

“Do you fear leaving me when you must return to America? Because I will join you. I’d join you wherever you wanted, even deepest Africa.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you have someone waiting for you in the States?”

“There’s nobody waiting for me anywhere, and I don’t think I’m ever going back to the US.”

“Then _why_?” William shouted. It was deafening so close. “Why must you torment me like this?”

“I’m no good for you, Will. I can’t—I can’t tell you the whole truth. I just can’t. But I can tell you that I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to destroy you.” That was as close as he could come to telling all without risking time paradoxes of the lethal variety.

William lifted his chin. “I am willing to risk that. Because not to have you…that would assuredly be the end of me.”

A tear slipped from the corner of William’s left eye and he angrily swiped it away with the back of his hand. He was shaking—Xander could feel the tremors of that compact body through the palms of his hands—but he kept his head high and his gaze steady. “Have me, Xander. Please.”

It was the please that undid Xander. He pulled William close and buried his face in curls. William was rigid against him for just a moment and then relaxed, softening the planes of his body against Xander’s. He made a small sound too, somewhere between a sigh and a moan, a sound that sent a thrill of electricity running the length of Xander’s spine. “Show me, please, Xander. Show me.”

Xander stroked him with his right hand, long, heavy sweeps across his back, and curled his left arm around William’s waist. He was going to hell. He was going to hell and he completely deserved it but God, it was worth it, just to feel William’s hot breath on his skin; to feel their hearts thudding in tandem; to hear that voice, both pleading and demanding. “All right. Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

“I don’t…I don’t know. I’ve never—we groped a bit, back in school, and kissed, but…it was...we didn’t…. I’m sorry. I’m quite ignorant.”

“It’s okay. Two guys, it’s not that different than a guy and girl, really, just slightly different placement of parts.”

But William pulled away slightly and looked earnestly at him. “I’ve never been intimate with a woman, either.”

“You’re a _virgin_?” Xander couldn’t help but exclaim.

William nodded, tight-lipped.

Oh, Xander was _so_ going to burn. Was there a special hell reserved for people who corrupted Victorian virgins and betrayed them and got them turned into vampires? But William was beginning to hunch into himself, embarrassed, so Xander cupped William’s chin in his hand and lifted it up. “That’s okay. We’ll just…. I’m gonna try and go slow, all right?” That was not going to be easy at all, not with the fire burning in his belly. “And if you want me to stop, or if you want something different, you just tell me.”

“I shall not want you to stop.”

Xander felt shaky, but he steeled himself as best as he could, and he pulled William’s braces down, slowly drew William’s shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, then tossed it aside. Then Xander tugged at William’s undershirt. William obediently lifted his arms and allowed Xander to pull it over his head; it joined the other clothes on the floor. Xander stopped, then, and placed his palms flat on William’s chest, just to feel the soft skin. William’s chest was almost hairless, and nearly as pale as Spike’s had been—would be? The tenses were so confusing—but he was thinner now, not as muscular as Xander remembered from his Sunnydale days. William was breathing very fast and his eyes were very wide.

“You…you as well. I want to see you.”

Obligingly, Xander began to unbutton his frock coat, but William knocked his hands away and did it himself, a little clumsily. Xander let his coat fall onto the rug, and then his vest. He smiled when William untied the ascot. He unbuttoned the braces next. William carefully removed the red glass cuff-links he’d bought Xander the previous week, then Xander’s shirt and undershirt. He copied Xander’s earlier movements, placing his hands on his partner’s chest, but in this case he ran his fingertips gently through the dark hairs that grew there.

“Is this—” Xander began.

“More.” William waited for him as trustingly as a child.

Xander reached over then and unfastened the button at William’s waist. William hissed slightly as Xander’s hands moved down to undo his fly, but instead of moving away he leaned in a little closer, and Xander could feel the flesh under his fingers thicken and harden. William’s trousers slid down his narrow hips and pooled at his feet. He steadied himself with one hand on Xander’s shoulder as he stepped out of them, then kicked them away. He was left in his long drawers and thick socks, and his burgeoning erection was very evident. Xander looked to him for permission, and William nodded twice, so then Xander peeled the underwear off, making them both gasp as fingertips moved down bare skin. Xander had to kneel to remove the underwear and socks from each foot, and then he stood slowly, taking a long look at the figure before him.

He’d seen Spike naked before. The first time was when he’d walked in on Spike fucking an invisible Buffy, and though at the time a part of him had wanted very badly to erase that image from his mind, another part of him had dwelled on it, lean muscles contracting and loosening under skin nearly as white as the sheets. It had been around that time when Xander began to have an inkling that he wasn’t exactly straight as an arrow. He’d seen even more bare Spike the following year when Spike was living with him and prone to wander from shower to bedroom-closet au naturel. But there hadn’t been anything sexual about those glimpses—Spike was still half-crazy and Xander was preoccupied with work, Anya, and something devouring from beneath.

So he’d never seen Spike like William was, a little shy but not making any attempt to hide, flushed, panting lightly, long cock upright among light brown curls.

“Am I…acceptable?” William asked nervously.

Xander couldn’t help but choke out a laugh. “More than, Will. You look like a work of art.”

William smiled. “May I see you as well?”

“Of course.”

William eagerly removed Xander’s pants, and when he knelt to take off the underwear and shoes and socks, Xander had to close his eyes very tightly and recite multiplication tables in his head. “Acceptable?” he asked when William stood again and inspected him carefully.

“Quite.”

They both seemed hesitant to resume contact right away, so for a while they just stood there, hard, but Xander could almost feel the brush of William’s gaze over him like a feather, and he shivered.

“You’re cold,” William frowned. “The fire’s died down. Shall I—”

“Let’s just climb into bed and make our own heat.”

That seemed to be agreeable to William, because he grabbed Xander’s hand and dragged him across the floor. But Xander tripped over something—his own shoe, he thought—and fell into William, knocking them both onto the mattress. Elbows and knees connected in uncomfortable places, but they both began to laugh. Seized with a sudden impulse, Xander began to tickle William on his sides and under his arms, and William laughed harder and squirmed underneath him in a particularly interesting way.

“Stop! Stop!” William said after a while.

Xander immediately did, looking down with concern.

“Can’t breathe, you big oaf,” William wheezed.

“Breathing is highly overrated anyway.”

William poked at Xander’s side.

So Xander kept touching William, but now with soft, slow caresses which William copied a little hesitantly. Then William’s hands settled on Xander’s ass, but William immediately pulled them away. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be.” Xander took one of those hands and placed it very firmly back where he wanted it, on his own rump. “You’re supposed to touch. It’s part of the fun. Touch me anywhere you want, Will.”

After a slight pause, William complied, replacing his other hand as well, smoothing his palms over Xander’s skin and then squeezing lightly. Xander rewarded him with a kiss that seemed to last for years, until he felt William arching slightly beneath him, rubbing his cock a little into the hollow of Xander’s hip.

Xander broke off the kiss reluctantly. “What do you want me to do, Will? We don’t have to…I mean it’s your first time and all….”

“Take me,” William replied breathlessly, and Xander had to bite his tongue to suppress a snort of laughter, because William sounded like something from one of the bad romance novels he and Willow and Jesse used to read out loud in junior high.

“Okay. But we need….” He thought for a moment. He guessed they could skip the rubber; William had never had sex and Xander was resurrected and presumably pathogen-free. All of which was good, because he wasn’t even sure if they had condoms in 1880, and if they did, it seemed pretty damned unlikely that William owned any, or that they could just pop out to a 7-Eleven and buy some. “We need lube,” he said.

“What?” William blinked at him.

“Lubricant. So I don’t hurt you when I, um….” Mr. Rice, his high school sex ed teacher, had always told the class that if you couldn’t talk about an act with someone you weren’t ready to do it with them either. “So it doesn’t hurt when I’m inside you.”

William’s eyes went wide again. “Oh. What…what shall we use?”

K-Y or Astroglide were probably out of the question. “Lotion of some kind, or oil. I used butter once when I was kinda desperate, but eww.”

“I’ve some macassar oil. Will that do?”

“Macassar oil?”

William huffed impatiently. “It’s for hair. I can rarely be bothered to use it, but I’ve a bottle somewhere. Shall I fetch it?”

“Sure. Let’s give it a shot.”

William flashed one of his bright smiles and hopped out of bed. He moved a little self-consciously, well-aware of Xander’s avid gaze on his pretty spectacular backside. A backside that just about begged to be spanked and…and that was probably a little too advanced for the poor guy’s first time, Xander reminded himself. But he smiled to himself as William scurried across the floor to a tall chest of drawers. William spent a moment pawing through the top drawer, dropping handkerchiefs and socks onto the floor in his haste, until, with a triumphant flourish, he held up a small brown bottle. Xander got a satisfying view of his equally spectacular front-side as he ran back to the bed.

“Here,” William said, handing the bottle over. “I’m not certain how….”

“Oh, allow me.” With a grin, Xander gently pushed William back onto the mattress. He shoved the blankets out of the way, licked his lips at the way William was laid out for him, eager but slightly scared, and ran a palm all the way down William’s chest, belly, hip, and thigh. “Ready, baby?”

William smiled at the endearment. “Tell me what to do.”

“Well first, just relax.” He moved his hand over until it was almost but not quite touching William’s cock. William whimpered slightly and bumped his hips up an inch or so, aligning Xander’s palm along the length of his shaft. Xander stroked very, very slowly, savoring the sensation of soft skin moving over the rigid core. “Good?”

“Hmm,” was all William managed, but Xander figured that was a positive sign. He played for a moment with William’s retracted foreskin—he always had enjoyed uncut men—and then ran just a single fingertip to the tip of the reddened crown. A bead of liquid appeared, and Xander rubbed it into the skin approvingly. Another droplet formed and William groaned and humped against him. “Xander….”

“Okay. Moving right along now.” Because the truth was, Xander was a little excited, too. He took his hand away and used it to carefully urge William’s legs farther apart. “Bend your legs, like this,” he instructed, moving one of William’s feet until the sole was flat against the sheets.

William laughed and wiggled a little—he was ticklish there, too—but complied. “Like so?”

“Perfect. But hang on….” Xander grabbed a pillow and shoved it against William’s bottom. He had to pat one flank gently, but then William got the idea and lifted his hips up so Xander could slide the cushion underneath. “Oh. That’s just….” He gulped. “Very nice.”

He carefully unstoppered the little bottle and sniffed at the contents. Not bad—kind of citrusy, flowery, custardy. He poured a tiny drop on his finger—it was slick, but not too greasy. Perfect. So he poured a bit more and then, ever-so-gently, placed that finger between William’s slightly parted cheeks. “I’m gonna try and go slow, Will. It might hurt just a little, but it should be okay if you relax. I’ll stop if you tell me to.”

“Don’t stop!” William ordered a little desperately, making Xander chuckle.

“Okay. Just one finger, now.” And he pressed slightly against the tight ring, just a little pressure and he was in, and William made a tiny “oh” sound. “That’s good, baby. Just relax. You can sort of bear down a little if you want, that’ll help open the muscles.”

He felt the constriction around him as William did as he’d been told. So Xander slid inside just a bit more and crooked his finger, searching for the little bump of tissue. As soon as he touched it, William shuddered and cried out, “Bloody _hell_!”

“Yeah, that’s good, isn’t it?” He remembered the first time Anya had shown him that the prostate gland was his friend—his very _good_ friend—and the way he’d wondered then how he’d managed to miss out on that particular joy for so long. Now, he moved his finger in and out a little, continuing to rub the gland, until William was rocking his hips and gasping.

“Don’t!” William said when Xander withdrew his finger.

“Don’t worry. More where that came from.” He poured more oil on and set the bottle on the nightstand. This time he inserted two fingers, scissoring them slightly, and he used his free hand to grasp Spike’s cock and move up and down.

But after only a few moments of that, William was writhing and mewling pitifully. “Xander…Xander…I’m going to….” He grabbed at Xander’s hair and pulled—hard!—whether to stop him or to hang on to something besides the slippery sheets. Xander wasn’t sure.

“Right,” Xander said, extricating himself gingerly. He couldn’t help pausing just to look at William some more. The man looked thoroughly debauched already, and then he did that thing with his tongue, that thing Xander had always assumed was a purely Spikish mannerism.

“Now, Xander!”

“’Kay. Sometimes it’s easier if you roll over, though, especially the first time—”

“No. I want to see you.”

That was fine with Xander. He got up on his knees and scooted up, positioning himself between William’s legs. As William watched, Xander grabbed his own cock. He touched just the tip against William’s slippery, softened opening. “Okay?” he asked, really, really hoping William wasn’t going to say no.

William nodded rapidly.

So, as slowly as humanly possible, Xander pushed inside. William grunted and, just for a moment, went very tense, but then he relaxed again and smiled up at Xander. “’T’s lovely,” he breathed.

“It is. You are. God, you feel so good! It doesn’t hurt?”

“No.” As if to prove it, he tilted his hips a little, urging Xander to move.

And Xander did, slowly at first, then faster. His arms began to tremble with the strain of his weight, but he didn’t care, because he felt so good, and William was so tight, and was making these incredibly sexy little grunting noises with every thrust. Xander could tell when he’d angled himself just right, because William tilted his head back on his pillow, exposing his long, slender neck, and bit at his lower lip so hard Xander thought it might start bleeding.

“X-X-Xander!”

He could feel the shudders as they wracked William’s body. Xander collapsed forwards and pressed his lips against William’s, while William wrapped his legs around Xander’s waist very tightly and dug his fingernails into Xander’s shoulders. Most of Xander’s brain was otherwise occupied, but the few remaining cells thought it felt as though the two men were going to merge into one—some sort of writhing, moaning, two-backed demon. Xander had seen stranger things.

Then William jerked his face away and cried out raggedly. Xander felt the spurt of warm liquid between their bellies, and the rhythmic clenching of William’s muscles around him, and he lost all of his own rhythm and just pounded, pounded until he came undone.

[Chapter Nine](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/221403.html)

 

  



	9. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
_  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (9/12)**   
_

  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 9 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 **Nine**

 

“You snore terribly.”

Xander had a split second of near panic—he was in bed with Spike!—before the engine of his tired mind turned over and he remembered. “I thought I snored pretty well, actually,” he grinned.

William bopped him with a pillow.

Xander of course retaliated, and soon that devolved into tickling because William was just so deliciously ticklish; but then, predictably, things got pretty groiny and they were rutting up against each other frantically until the flaking mess on their stomachs and in their pubic hair was joined by new deposits of stickiness.

Panting, they lay side by side, looking up at the ceiling. “Needs replastering,” Xander observed.

William responded by rolling on his side and nuzzling up against him. “I’ve never slept with anyone before.”

“Do you like it? Aside from the snoring, I mean.”

“Has its benefits.” Almost shyly, William stroked Xander’s soft, wet cock.

“It does.” They were both silent a while, listening to each other breathe. Then Xander spoke again. “No regrets about last night, then?”

“No! You haven’t any, have you?” William looked worried.

“No way.” Because he was damned anyway, and it had so been worth it.

William gave him a smug smile. “I was good, then?”

Xander rolled over to face him and wrap his arms around him. “You were very, very good.”

“But I shall still require more practice, I believe.” William burrowed impossibly closer and licked underneath Xander’s ear.

So they made out for a while. They were both too sated for more, but kissing was very nice and William’s skin was so very soft and warm.

“Um, Will?” Xander said when they came up for air. “Is Maggie gonna be scandalized if she figures out I didn’t sleep in my own bed?”

William snickered, and it was another of those Spike-like moments that, surprisingly, Xander was discovering he cherished, like brief visits from an old friend. “It shall likely give her the thrill of her life.”

Snuggling in bed was very pleasant, but it couldn’t last forever. Eventually, life’s realities came trickling back into Xander’s consciousness. “Hey, Will?”

“Hmm?” William was about half asleep.

“I kind of have something I have to do this afternoon. Somewhere I have to go by myself. It’s, um—”

“One of those deep, dark secrets you are unable to relate to me?”

Heavy sigh. “Yeah.”

“That shall be fine. I’m feeling rather inspired to write today.” William lazily stretched and then climbed out of bed and stretched again, all vestiges of self-consciousness gone. A little sunlight crept in around the edges of the heavy curtains—sunlight!—and it fell across him, making him glow, lighting the ends of his hair like a fiber-optic sculpture. “If you fancy remaining in bed, I’ll fetch you some breakfast.”

Xander thought for a minute. “Nah, I gotta get up and take a leak anyway.”

“Your delicacy knows no bounds,” William teased.

“Talk to me about delicacy when I haven’t screwed my brains out, okay?”

William shook his head fondly and stepped over piles of last night’s discarded clothing to get to his dressing gown. As he slipped it on, another thought occurred to Xander. “Hey, can I borrow…I dunno. A little cash?”

“Your secret errand requires funds?”

“Not much. But if it’s a problem, no big deal, I can—”

“It’s not a problem, Xander.” He opened a drawer and took out a small cloth bag. “Will ten shillings do?”

Xander did a quick mental calculation. He hadn’t really handled any money since he’d arrived, and the whole system was so damned confusing—when would the English discover decimals?—that he had only vague ideas of how much things cost. Then he remembered that William had handed over ten shillings sixpence for the boots he’d worn the previous night. “Yeah, ten’s more than enough. Thanks.” He smiled. “Never thought I’d have my very own sugar daddy.”

“A what?” William asked, setting some coins on the table near the bed.

“Never mind.”

 

***

 

Pritchard’s coffeehouse was a large space with high ceilings and plain wooden floors. The din of loud conversation echoed off the brick walls, and the air was filled with the scents of coffee and cigar smoke and meat pies. Cecily was already there when he arrived and she called him over. He wound his way around other customers until he got to her table near the back. She wore a white dress with pale blue flowers and a low-cut neckline, and her hair was up in some sort of elaborate style with pins and ribbons.

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing impatiently at the empty chair across from her.

Xander removed his hat and overcoat and hung them on the nearby rack, and then sat.

With narrowed eyes, she demanded, “All right, then. Explain.”

“Um…” he said, because he honestly didn’t have a clue where to begin.

“Who _are_ you? How do you know who I am? And what do you think you’re doing with William?”

“What are _you_ doing to him? He hasn’t done anything to earn a take-down from a vengeance demon.”

“I’m not—” She stopped as a skinny young man with terrible teeth approached. “Two coffees,” she said, and waved him away imperiously. The boy hurried away. She continued, “I’m not here to punish him for anything. But you answer my questions first.”

He didn’t know what the repercussions would be of telling her what he was up to, but he definitely knew better than to cross her kind. “I’m from the future.”

“You’re _what_?”

“I’m from the twenty-first century. And I’m dead. At least, I will be then. Right now I seem to be pretty much alive.”

“You are not making a bit of sense.”

Xander groaned, because he knew she was right; but then the entire situation didn’t make much sense. With a deep breath, he tried again. “Okay, here’s the thing. Pretty soon, William’s supposed to get turned into a vampire. And that’s important, ‘cause about 120 years from now, he’s gonna save the world. I know, sounds unlikely for a vampire, but it’s true. I was there. Or will be there. Whatever. But see, these bad guys are trying to keep him from getting vamped, so he’s not around to save anything. And I got sent here to make sure…to make sure he gets bit.”

She was quiet for a while, no doubt processing all of that. In the meantime, the kid came by with their coffees, and Xander sipped at his, burning his tongue in the process. She poured sugar and cream into hers and stirred, but didn’t drink. Finally, she looked at him again. “And how do you know William? And Anyanka?”

“I…William came to the town where I grew up. Sunnydale.”

“You grew up on the Hellmouth?”

“Yep.”

“And…and that’s where you met William as a vampire and Anyanka.”

“Yeah. And a cast of thousands.”

She tapped at her teeth with one long fingernail. “Did you say you were engaged to Anyanka? I can’t imagine her being interested in a…a _human_ ,” she said with a curl of her lip.

“Well I was, for a while. And then…well, it really doesn’t matter anymore. But none of this has anything to do with her. But why are you here?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve business, of course. Several items, in fact.”

“Like killing William,” he said angrily.

“Not exactly. I’m meant to be saving him, really.”

“Says who?”

She shrugged. “Orders from above. I don’t question them.”

“D’Hoffryn wants him turned?”

“You really do know our secrets, don’t you? But no, as a matter of fact, D’Hoffryn was just passing instructions on this time. I don’t know from whom or whence. What I do know is that I’m meant to get the little fool to fall in love with me, and then scorn him, so that he runs crying out into the night, and into his fate. But you’ve ruined that now, haven’t you?”

“No! I haven’t. I mean.... You can still—”

“That man’s heart was like a trap just waiting to be sprung.” She pointed at him accusingly. “You sprung it. Now it’s too late for me. He won’t even spare me a look.”

“But I didn’t mean to! I was trying— Fuck! I told you, I’m trying to make sure he gets vamped. I didn’t try to make him fall for me.”

“You’re just that irresistible, is that it?”

“He was lonely!” He said it so loudly that even in that noisy place people were staring. He lowered his voice. “He was lonely and I was his friend. The rest…it just happened. I didn’t encourage him or seduce him or—”

“Wait!” She held a hand up. Her brow was furrowed in thought. “Exactly how did you get here from the future?”

“I…I was dead, like I told you.”

“Anyanka?”

“No, it had nothing to do with her. Natural causes, believe it or not. And I was on this island, waiting, I guess. Just waiting.”

She waved her hand. “I know the place.”

“So then Dawn showed up and she—”

“Dawn? This is a person?”

He nodded. “An old friend.”

“Was she the one for whom you were waiting?”

“No. I don’t know who I was waiting for. She just came with a message. She said nasty wizard guys were trying to change the past and I had to go back and make sure it stayed the same. She gave me the magic time travel word and everything.”

She stared at him incredulously. “And you believed her?”

“Of course I believed her! She’s one of my oldest friends. She’s like my little sister.”

Cecily shook her head slowly. “Oh, you idiot! You stupid, stupid human!”

“Hey! I may not be a rocket scientist but I’m doing my best here. It’s not like anyone gave me a time travel manual and—”

“Idiot!” she repeated. “How do you know that was really your friend?”

“It was! I mean, she looked like Dawnie and she smelled like her and she knew stuff that Dawnie knows and—”

“What kind of ‘stuff?’” she demanded.

He tried to remember. “Well, she knew that we’re friends with Willow, who’s this really powerful witch. And she knew my friend Buffy—she was the Slayer—she knew Buffy had been dead for a long time.”

Cecily looked completely disgusted. “ _Anyone_ would know those things, would they not? At least, anyone who had done a bit of research. Did she say anything to you that was more personal? Something only she would know?”

“Well…no.”

“Let me get this straight. An old acquaintance materializes in the afterlife with a tale about interfering with timelines and you simply take her word for it?”

“I….” He bit at his lip. “She took me by surprise. I was dead and all alone and there she was…. It didn’t really occur to me to give her the third degree.”

“And the fate of the world rests on people like you,” she complained. “Brilliant. That was not your little friend who came to call, Mr. Harris.”

He was kind of getting that by now. “Then who…?”

“One of your evil wizards, of course! Who else would be capable of traveling to the afterlife and masquerading as your friend, not to mention providing you with the means of time transportation?”

He blew on his coffee and took a long swallow, trying to clear his head. “Why would they do that?”

“Do you really not see? _You_ are the one! You are the obstacle that shall keep William from his fate, and from surviving to become a hero.”

Oh shit. Oh shit, she was right. Xander buried his face in his hands. He felt the blood rushing through his head and for a moment the rest of the room faded away and he was sure he was going to faint. He’d been stupid and now he’d doomed everything. “I’ll go back to the island right now,” he whispered.

“And that will solve nothing. Do you really believe his affections would turn so quickly from you to me? If you leave now, all is surely lost.”

He raised his head to look up at her. “Then…what?”

“Well, it’s out of my hands now. You need to ensure that in a fortnight William walks down that street and meets up with that hungry vampire.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ll drag him down there myself.”

“Do I have to spell out everything for you? William must be in the proper frame of mind. If he is not overcome with despair and rejection when he encounters the vampire, he will not accept her offer of eternity, and she will simply drain him. She’s looking for a particular sort of pet, isn’t she?”

Xander considered what he knew about Drusilla and Spike’s relationship, and, reluctantly, he nodded.

“Then you must do it. You must break his heart.”

“Oh, no. No! That’s not…that’s not….”

“You truly care for him, do you not?” She tilted her head at him.

“Yes,” he groaned.

“Then you know what you must do.” She took a sip of her coffee—her first, he thought—then stood. “You needn’t worry about _where_ you destroy him, so long as you do it exactly two weeks from tonight. Fate often intervenes to set things right, and he shall meet his vampire that night.”

And with that, she grabbed a cloak from a rack and swept out of the building. Xander was left alone among the crowds, drowning in anguish and forced to pay eight pence to the dental nightmare for the two coffees.

[Chapter Ten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/221573.html)   



	10. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
_  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (10/12)**   
_

  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 10 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 

 **Ten**

 

When William crept up behind Xander this time, he wrapped his arms around Xander’s waist and nuzzled at his neck. “You’ve labored enough today. Come away with me. The sun is out and it’s a fine day.”

“It’s cold.”

“I shall keep you warm.”

“But I have to finish framing this—”

“And it will remain for you tomorrow. There will always be more work tomorrow. Today let us pursue leisure instead.”

Xander sighed. He didn’t know why he was so determined to get everything repaired—it wasn’t as if the Pratts would be around much longer to enjoy the fixed-up place anyway. For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder what would happen to the house after they were dead, and whether the house was still standing in the twenty-first century. Then William nuzzled him again, warm breaths puffing against Xander’s jawline, and he gave in. He set down his hammer and nail. “Fine. What did you have in mind?”

William whooped happily and spun him around. “We could visit the National Gallery, perhaps, or the South Kensington Museum.”

“Any non-museum ideas?”

“Hmm. I know! A boat journey!”

“Um, okay.”

They had to put on extra layers of clothing, and as they dressed William fussed over Xander like a grandmother: “You must wear your scarf, Xander, and those warm gloves we bought yesterday.”

When Maggie heard their plans, she fed them a particularly large breakfast with thick oatmeal and slabs of leftover roast beef and crusty bread slathered with butter and, of course, tea laced heavily with milk and sugar. Maggie had clued into their new relationship immediately—Xander’s untouched bed and his clothing in William’s room being dead giveaways—and she kept sneaking glances at them and blushing and giggling.

Halfway through that enormous breakfast, Mrs. Pratt entered the kitchen. She was looking very pale and drawn, Xander thought; William noticed, too, and asked pointedly after her health. She waved her hand at him. “Stop worrying, dear. What have you and Xander to do today?”

“Greenwich.”

“Oh, how delightful! Have a marvelous time.” She leaned up and kissed William’s cheek and then, to Xander’s embarrassment and happiness, his as well. Then she and Maggie left the room, deep in a conversation about groceries.

“I wish she would permit me to have Dr. Gull call on her again,” William said sadly.

“Is there something he could do to help her…feel better?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s a really nice lady. And she loves you. My mom—well, she had her own problems, I guess.”

“She was foolish not to appreciate you,” William said, reaching out to stroke Xander’s cheek.

“Your mom, um, do you think she suspects about us?”

“There is very little in this household that escapes her attention, despite her current infirmity.”

“She’s really cool about it.”

“‘Cool,’ yes, I expect so. She has always wanted grandchildren, of course, but….”

“But it’s more important to her that you be happy.”

“Precisely.” Then he turned up the wattage of his smile considerably. “Shall we depart?”

It was amazingly bright out that day, so bright that Xander had to squint against the glare. But it was cold too, every inhale crackling in Xander’s lungs and their breaths condensing before them like steam from a dragon’s maw. “Is Greenwich warm, maybe? With palm trees and fruity drinks with umbrellas to sip on the beach?”

William just laughed and tugged him along. They hired a hansom cab to take them to the pier, where they boarded a wide, squat boat that spewed black smoke into the air. The Thames was opaque, as gray as steel, and it reeked. But William didn’t seem to care. He was in high spirits as they chugged along. “I expect you must find boats quite tiresome by now,” he said, as they stood at the rail watching the buildings float by.

“Not really. I haven’t spent much time on them, actually.”

William turned and frowned at him. “But your journey to England? Surely even Californians aren’t so exotic as to be able to grow wings and fly across the sea like birds.”

“Um…no. I guess I’d sort of forgotten that trip. I mean, what with being so busy since.” He elbowed William and leered suggestively.

William snorted and looked back over the water again. After five or ten minutes, and without looking at Xander he said, “Do you expect I’ll see it someday?”

“See what?”

William gestured vaguely downriver. “Everything. The rest of the world. I’ve never been off this island, and there is so much I should like to see, so many wonders I’ve yet to encounter….” His voice trailed wistfully away.

Xander put an arm around his shoulders, hoping that it wouldn’t violate any Victorian taboos about male PDA. “You will. You’ll see the world: Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas. You’ll see more amazing things than you can even dream about. I promise.”

“And how is it you sound so certain?”

“Hey, I’m a…a whatsit, remember? A prog-thingy.”

“Prognosticator.”

“Yeah. That.”

“And will you be there with me, Xander?” William asked quietly.

“I….” Xander shut his eyes tightly, glad that William couldn’t see. “We’ll see mind-blowing stuff together. God, if you knew some of the things that are out there…. Well, someday you will.”

“And shall I ever know you, Xander Harris? Shall I ever solve your mysteries?”

Some mysteries were best left unsolved, Xander thought. Out loud he said, “Yeah, I think you will.”

The boat pulled up to a dock soon after that. Along with the few other passengers, Xander and William filed off and then up some stairs. William led them to a railing where they could look across the water and back towards the city. But it was cold, so they found a pub where they had tea and ale; and then they bought fish and chips wrapped in newspapers, and the food was hot and greasy and delicious. Afterwards they strolled along the river, admiring the baroque buildings of the Royal Naval College. William pointed out the Royal Observatory, up on a hill and with a big orange ball that dropped every afternoon at one. “Like Times Square,” Xander said, and William gave him one of his baffled looks.

“That was once a castle,” William said, pointing. “Placentia. Henry the Eighth was born there. Married there. Twice. He kept a mistress there. Queen Bess and Bloody Mary were born there as well, and Edward VI died there.”

Xander nodded appreciatively. “You have so much history here. Where I’m from, everything’s new.”

“New is good. Fresh. Not…not all tied down with tradition and such rot. Not buried under the weight of time.”

“Time is a funny thing, you know? You think of it like a…like a one way street. But it’s not. It’s all twisty-winding, and it doubles back, and some parts go really slow and others just zoom by.”

“I despair of ever understanding you, Xander.”

“Sorry,” Xander said, looking down at his feet.

“Don’t be. I believe I shall have a most diverting time attempting to understand you, even if I never succeed.”

They continued walking along the Thames, shoulders bumping companionably.

 

***

 

It was well after dark by the time they got home, and their noses were red and dripping with cold. Maggie met them in the foyer with disapproving looks and mutterings about how they’d both catch their deaths. Xander laughed a little hysterically at that.

“Will you be wantin’ some dinner?” she asked them, halfway buried under their coats and scarves and hats.

William shot Xander a look that was much more heated than the room. “In a bit, Maggie. Nothing elaborate. Some meat and potatoes, perhaps. Has mother eaten?”

She shook her head. “The Missus retired early. She was feelin’ a bit indisposed.”

William frowned. “I shall check on her.”

“No, sir. She told me to tell you not to disturb ‘er. Wants to get ‘er rest, she does.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he allowed Xander to take his sleeve and drag him up the stairs. As soon as they were out of Maggie’s sight, Xander pushed him up against the wall and slammed against him, putting them both in jeopardy of falling down the stairs as they kissed. But Xander’s actions had the desired effect: William momentarily stopped worrying about Mrs. Pratt and, when they broke apart to catch their breath, it was William who hauled Xander up to his room.

Over the last ten days, they’d both become more adept at removing each other’s clothes. Xander still couldn’t tie an ascot or cravat properly, but he sure could untie one, and quickly. He especially liked the neckwear William had worn this day, a silk ascot in a blue that almost exactly matched his lover’s eyes, and which Xander himself had picked out at the department store a few days earlier (although, of course, William had paid for it). Xander waited until William was completely naked—Xander was still wearing his shirt and pants—and then he wound the ascot back around William’s neck, tying it like a collar.

When Xander turned William around so he could see his own reflection in the full-length mirror, could watch as Xander stood behind him and stroked at his shoulders and back and ass, William’s eyes grew very big and his already-erect cock twitched eagerly. “Bloody hell,” he hissed.

“Look at you,” Xander whispered in his ear. “Look how beautiful you are. _Remember_ this, Will. No matter what happens, you will always be this beautiful to me. Always.”

William mewled slightly and leaned back into Xander’s touch. “Xander…God. The way you make me feel.… The things you do to me….”

Xander ran a finger into the crevasse between William’s cheeks and rubbed teasingly against the rim of his twitching little hole. William wiggled a little, trying to impale himself, but Xander wouldn’t let him; instead, as William widened his stance, Xander repositioned his hand to stroke gently at the sensitive skin behind William’s scrotum. They both watched as clear liquid formed at the purpled tip of William’s cock and glistened in the gaslight.

Continuing his light caresses with the fingers of his right hand, Xander licked and nibbled along William’s neck and jawline and sucked briefly on his earlobe, William’s hair tickling at Xander’s face. William trembled and leaned back even more, resting the weight of his shoulders against Xander’s chest as if his legs could no longer quite hold him. “P-please,” William rasped. His eyelids fluttered as Xander again circled his hole, and he cried out and jerked his hips when Xander reached around with his left hand to grasp the shaft of William’s cock.

“Xan, let me…let me….”

“Shh. I want you just to look, baby. Look and feel and remember, okay?”

William nodded dumbly, maybe because words were beyond him, and Xander couldn’t help but hump a little against his bare hip, the soft wool of his underclothing seeming so rough and thick compared to the skin under Xander’s hands.

When William began to rock his pelvis wantonly, Xander moved his right hand around as well, and rubbed his middle finger into the precome that was now flowing liberally from William’s crown. William shuddered and moaned when that finger delved into his slick little slit, and then almost sobbed when Xander took that hand away. But Xander wasn’t cruel—he moved his right hand back to William’s ass and inserted his now-slippery finger slightly inside.

“Oh, God!” William’s voice was as hoarse as if he’d been screaming, his carefully cultured vowels slipping into something a little coarser, a little more Spike-like. Despite the chill in the room, a sheen of sweat had broken out along his chest and belly. His nipples stood out in stiff pink peaks that looked as edible as the cherry on a sundae, the silk of the ascot hanging low between them; his hipbones and cheekbones jutted like wings; his mouth hung open and astonished. “X-X-Xan—”

Quickly, Xander removed his hands. Before William could choke out a complaint, Xander moved around and knelt in front of him, taking that long, hard cock between his lips.

William inhaled so sharply Xander was a little afraid the man would pass out, and William instantly grabbed handfuls of Xander’s hair. Xander rolled his eyes upwards to make sure William was still watching their reflections; when Xander saw that he was, he rewarded him by swallowing him down.

“Oh, fuck!” William shouted. Had Xander been capable of it, he would have laughed—he’d never really heard him swear before. Instead, he snaked a hand between William’s trembling thighs and pushed his finger back inside.

William thrust helplessly into Xander’s mouth—hard enough that Xander almost gagged, and his eyes teared up a little, but he didn’t try to move away. He just bobbed his head in tandem with William’s movements, and with three more thrusts William was coming, a ragged cry ripping from his throat and his spend shooting so far down Xander’s gullet that Xander didn’t need to swallow.

Xander pulled his head back a little, but didn’t release William completely until the aftershocks had slowed and William looked ready to collapse bonelessly. Then Xander stood—silently thankful to once again have youthful knees—and took the other man into his arms.

“But you didn’t…. You haven’t….” William said into the cotton of Xander’s shirt.

Xander smoothed at William’s bare back, feeling the muscles dance beneath his touch. “It’s fine. Later. When we go to bed.”

“But—”

“It doesn’t matter, Will. Not now. Just promise me that…that later—in the future—you’ll remember what you looked like, okay?”

“Why?”

“Just promise.”

Xander felt William nod his head against him. “I promise.”

“Will you do something else for me?”

“Anything.”

“Someday…um, it might be a long time from now…but someday will you remember that you’re a good man? And nothing…nothing that happens is gonna change that.”

William pushed himself back a little and looked at Xander with eyes still dark and dilated. “I shall. But I wonder, Xander. Shall you ever believe the same about yourself?”

[Chapter Eleven](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/221752.html)

  



	11. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
_  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (11/12)**   
_

  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 11 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." I'll be posting several chapters a day between now and November 8, and there will be notes at the end.

 **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

   


 **Eleven**

 

It was a gray day. That shouldn’t have been anything special, of course—the days here were almost always gray, except when they were sort of pukey-yellowish, or just plain black. But somehow this day’s gloom seemed like an omen, and it felt like the leaden sky was settled in Xander’s stomach too.

The morning had started fine, with a snuggle up against William’s blanket-warmed backside, followed by a lazy morning screw. William had topped for only the second time, and the amazed, nearly worshipful look on his face when he sheathed himself fully inside Xander’s eager body was almost enough in itself to make Xander come.

Afterwards, there had been Maggie smiling slyly at them in the kitchen; and bacon and fried tomatoes and mushrooms and thick, yeasty bread with marmalade for breakfast; and Mrs. Pratt sailing through the dining room, looking perkier than she had in weeks.

But then Xander had noticed the hectic flush on her pale cheeks, and he’d wondered if this was like that little burst of energy he’d had just before he ended up in the hospital for the last time, that perverse final gift of life that had almost convinced him he was going to beat the disease he could hardly even pronounce. Glomerulonephritis. Why couldn’t doctors just use ordinary English? Pissing-blood-until-you-slip-into-a-coma disease might not have that catchy Latin rhythm, but you could spell it and it was a hell of a lot more descriptive.

As if these thoughts weren’t gloomy enough, Mrs. Pratt interrupted them by saying, “William dear, are you certain you and Xander won’t attend the party tonight at the Townsends? It shall be quite informal, and—”

“No. Mother, none of those people are my friends. They mock me behind my back—don’t shake your head, Mother, you know it’s true—and in any case I find them frivolous. There is nothing I wish to say to them, and nothing I wish to hear from them either.”

“But William, Cecily Underwood shall be there. Perhaps you should at the least attend and inform the poor girl that your interests now lie elsewhere.” She smiled apologetically at Xander. “She has quite set her cap for you.”

“Cecily Underwood knows perfectly well already that my interests lie elsewhere, Mother, and I am certain she shall suffer no difficulties in digging her claws into some other poor sod.”

“William!”

He rolled his eyes, then sighed. “Forgive me. But I have no interest in attending, nor does Xander. We shall find something more interesting to do tonight. I understand there is a phantasmagoria tonight at the Lyceum; perhaps we shall attend that. Have you ever seen one, Xander?”

“Um, no,” Xander answered. He had no idea what a phantasmagoria was, but that didn’t matter because he knew exactly what he and William would be doing that night, and the thought of it made him regret his big breakfast.

“Then it’s settled.” William smiled at Xander triumphantly while his mother sighed and shook her head. William caught at her hand and kissed the knuckles, though, and her expression softened into a fond smile for her adored but willful child.

After breakfast, Xander intended to finish painting that one room green. Not that it would make any difference, but it rankled him to leave projects half finished. But William kept wandering into the room and talking to him and, well, groping him, until they were both splattered in spots the color of pine needles. Xander finally gave in when William kicked the paint can over—Xander managed to right it before it all spilled out, but not before the floorboards were green, too. William shrugged, unconcerned. “We shall put a rug over that bit.”

So Xander allowed himself to be dragged into the bathroom, and William himself fetched buckets of hot water and then they both squished into the tub, which meant there actually wasn’t all that much room left for water. But then getting clean hardly seemed to be the point. Xander had to lecture William about the inadequacies of soap as a lubricant, and then they ended up sort of wiggling and smooshing together, bathwater overflowing and dripping onto the tile, until they were both spent and slightly exhausted.

Exhausted for about five minutes, that was, until William smiled and extracted himself from Xander and the tub, and yanked at Xander’s arm. “Come on, Xander. Let’s go have a few pints.”

They toweled off and got dressed and bundled up. William grabbed a pair of umbrellas as they left the house, although it wasn’t actually raining just yet. They stopped at the barber’s for shaves—Xander forcibly tamping down the realization that this would be William’s last shave ever—and then going to a pub William liked, the Boar’s Head. They’d been there a few times before. It wasn’t very big and the fire was always roaring cheerfully. The owner—the landlord, William called him—was a perpetually grinning sort with a curly waxed mustache and a very busty wife. He smiled at them as soon as they came in and brought them overflowing glasses of ale, as well as a little dish of nuts.

“It’s a good trick,” William said, watching Xander pop some of the nuts into his mouth.

“What is?”

“The nuts. Good and salty, yes? So you eat them and you get thirsty and you order more ale to wash them down.”

“That is pretty clever.”

“Hmm,” William grinned, tossing a few walnuts into his own mouth. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“Before we know it, springtime will be upon us.”

“Really? ‘Cause I haven’t exactly noticed a heatwave, Will.”

“Soon enough. And perhaps when the weather turns warm, we could take a small holiday. You could see more of England. We could go to Bath. Or we could sail to the Isle of Wight. The Queen herself summers there, you know.”

“We’ll just have to drop in and have tea with her then,” Xander said, trying to hide the queasy feeling in his gut.

But maybe he didn’t do such a great job, because William suddenly looked very serious, and he stared down at the rough wooden table. “Perhaps you mean to be gone by then,” he said very softly.

Christ, this hurt like a knife to the heart. And he hadn’t even got to the really awful part yet. With a very shaky smile, and without stepping from the truth, Xander replied, “I don’t want to leave. I’d like…I’d really like to stay with you.”

William looked up at him then, eyes flashing, hope infusing his expression like a fragile glow. “Do you mean that?”

“I do.”

“Then do stay, Xander.” He reached across the table and grabbed Xander’s hands, not noticing or caring whether the few other patrons stared. “You’ve told me so little…I don’t know why you left home or whether you have anything there to which you would return. But it doesn’t matter—stay here always, or take me with you. Just don’t…don’t _leave_ me. Please. I couldn’t bear it.”

Xander was cold. Despite the flames at his back and the layers of wool on his body, despite the warm hands gripping his, he felt as if he’d been turned to ice. It was hard to move his stiff lips, to force air through his constricted throat. “I love you, William Pratt,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. Whatever…whatever happens, I’ll love you ‘til my last seconds on earth.”

William’s face flushed and he closed his eyes very tightly. He whispered something so quietly that Xander couldn’t quite make it out—it might have been “Thank you.”

Xander had never hated anyone as much as he despised himself at that moment.

 

***

 

He let William take him to the British Museum. He followed William around the place, listening to William lecture, and then he waited patiently while his lover spent an eternity leafing through books in the Reading Room. He drank tea and ate delicate little pastries at a café sort of place nearby, and did his best to follow William’s extended discussion of the rules of cricket, which seemed to be kind of like baseball only immensely more complicated. Xander even smiled then, remembering an afternoon in his parents’ crappy basement, when Xander had come home from whatever shitty job he had at the time to discover Spike sitting in the orange chair in front of Xander’s TV, cheering over a game—a match, Spike had corrected him—between Scotland and Denmark.

After tea, they went shopping. For once, Xander felt no guilt over spending the Pratts’ money—money neither of them would be needing any longer. He let William buy him a pair of diamond and gold cufflinks, and, with the nine shillings he still carried from two weeks ago, Xander bought William a book, a beautifully illustrated novel by Jules Verne that he knew William would never get to read.

By the time they completed their purchases, it had stopped raining and the air had grown oddly warm. “See?” William said. “Soon it shall be spring.” But the warmth felt unnatural to Xander and the sky was a particularly strange color—like an old bruise—that seemed to make even William a bit uneasy.

But it wasn’t enough to ruin William’s good humor. They went back to number 43 and William spent an hour or so locked up in his study, refusing to let Xander in. Xander wandered the house for a while, twice startling Maggie as she went about her chores. “You do creep about like a ghost, Mr. ‘Arris,” she complained after the second time, and then she looked even more spooked at the way he responded with a slightly crazy laugh.

Eventually, Xander grew bored and knocked on the study door. But there was no answer, and when he peeked inside, the room was empty. He searched around the big house for almost fifteen minutes before finding William in the nursery. He was standing in front of the dresser, looking at the photos. He didn’t turn around when Xander came into the room, although he must have heard him. “I wish I had known them,” William said when Xander was right behind him. “For that matter, I wish they had known you. I wonder what they would have made of you.”

“I’m guessing they would’ve disapproved, Will.”

“You don’t know that. I wish to believe that they would have loved you. Would have welcomed you into our family.”

“I don’t know that I’m all that lovable. And there’s the whole sodomite thing—not too popular, is it?”

“It doesn’t matter. I would have shown them what a good man you are.”

“I’m not a good man. I’m really, really not.”

William shook his head. “I cannot believe that rubbish.”

Xander sighed. “You will.”

William shook his head again, but this time like he was shaking off a bad mood, and then he turned and smiled at Xander. “Let’s have dinner out tonight.”

That entailed more dressing up, of course, with Xander in his new cuff-links and a dove-gray suit, and William in navy with the sky blue ascot. Mrs. Pratt came out of her room looking frail and tired, but she kissed both their cheeks and wished them a pleasant evening.

Xander managed not to bawl like a baby.

It was dark outside. Xander wished they’d left a little earlier, that they’d taken time to watch what passed for a sunset in London. But it was too late for that.

William had gone all out and hired a coach for the evening. It was a landau, he said, and it was much larger than their usual hansom cabs. The carriage was fully enclosed with big glass windows and doors, and it was pulled by a pair of handsome white horses. The driver smiled broadly at them both, held the door open for them and then closed it behind them, and then he boarded his seat in front. Xander felt a little like Cinderella.

They rode to Piccadilly Circus, where crowds of people were strolling slowly around, and dismounted in front of a big, ornate building. The Criterion, said the big sign on top. William grinned delightedly when he saw Xander’s stunned reaction to the restaurant's interior, which took his breath away. The ceiling was curved and covered in a glittering mosaic, the walls were lined with mirrors and carved pillars, gauzy gold and blue curtains were hung dramatically here and there, and the floor was polished marble.

“Wow,” Xander said.

“Precisely.”

Xander let William order. He regretted that a bit when the first course arrived and it involved something with goose liver and pigeon, but then he took a cautious bite and it was delicious. After that was fish in a buttery sauce; then pork loin with black pudding (which William relished to an extent Xander found more than a little prescient); and pureed peas and roasted potatoes; and finally cheeses and grapes and tiny, crisp apples, and a pear tart with clotted cream.

William did most of the talking during the meal, prattling happily about a vacation he and his mother had taken in Brighton before she became sick, and about a book he’d recently read by Leo Tolstoy, and about how he wanted to take Xander to The Derby in June, and so on. Xander smiled as best as he could and tried to pretend enthusiasm, but even the several glasses of wine and then one of brandy didn’t help.

Their landau was waiting for them outside the restaurant. They climbed back inside and rattled along for a short time. William sat with his leg pressed against Xander’s and he hummed a song as they went. He had a nice singing voice, Xander thought, and Xander wished he’d heard more of it.

The theater was not far from the Opera Comique. The Lyceum had a grand portico with tall columns, and it reminded Xander a little of the White House. “More usually, Irving’s been appearing in Shakespeare here,” William said as they went inside. “He played a lovely Shylock last year and some months ago I saw him in _Othello_. But for a fortnight they’re doing a phantasmagoria instead. I believe you shall like it.”

The Lyceum was even fancier then the Opera Comique, and the crowd here was more upscale. They had a box seat again, a really good one, and William bought them each a glass of white wine from the pretty girl who came by with a tray.

It turned out that the phantasmagoria was sort of like a slide show with special effects. They used magic lanterns, William explained, as if Xander would have a clue what those were. But there were ghosts and devils and various scary monsters. Xander was unimpressed—how was he supposed to be scared of reflections when he knew perfectly well what _real_ demons were lurking in London?—but the audience screamed appreciatively, and William held his hand tightly and grinned, his white teeth a little feral with reflected light. It seemed that William had had a taste for the dark side before Dru came along.

At one point, when the theater was almost completely pitch dark—aside from some wandering fairy lights on stage—William leaned over and kissed Xander. Xander felt the man’s heart beating, _fast fast fast_ , measuring out its final contractions one by one. “Love,” William whispered into Xander’s ear, hot puffs of breath sending shivers across Xander’s skin, and he massaged Xander’s half-hard cock through the fabric of his trousers. When the lights suddenly came back on again, William pulled away, but anyone who glanced even casually would have known what they’d been up to, with William’s lips kiss-swollen and his eyes big and slightly glassy.

They waited until the theater was almost empty before they filed out. Their carriage was waiting, and Xander wanted very badly to climb inside and take William home, to wrap himself around William’s body and hold on tight and never, never let go.

“I’m not ready to end the night,” William said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Let’s— Oh! I know just the place!” He waved the driver away and grabbed Xander’s arm. Helplessly, Xander allowed himself to be towed down the sidewalk.

The place they entered was crowded and raucous; men and women, both well-dressed and not so much, sat around tiny tables or stood before a long, polished bar, eating oysters and drinking from small glasses, talking, laughing, calling out to one another. A few of them must have known William, because they looked surprised to see him, and then nodded at him. He nodded back. Xander and William twisted their way around people and tables, and they happened to be passing one table just as its occupants were getting up. William indicated to Xander that he should sit, and Xander did, while William made his way to the bar. Xander watched him go. A few men and women stopped and chatted with William, but only briefly; William seemed in a hurry to return to Xander.

A few minutes later he did return with two glasses of ale and two plates of oysters balanced precariously in his hands. He set everything down on the table, sloshing the suds a little in the process. “I used to come here when I was younger,” he said as he took his seat. “Haven’t been in ages.” He had to raise his voice a little to be heard over the din.

Xander nodded and took a long, fortifying drink.

“I know it’s not very posh, but perhaps you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine, Will,” Xander replied distractedly.

William frowned at him. “Is something wrong?”

Xander shook his head.

William’s face remained concerned, and then the creases in his brow eased slightly. “Perhaps the magic lantern show has upset you a bit? We shan’t go to another then. But look! I’ve a surprise for you.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his inside coat pocket and smoothed it open. “I just wrote it this afternoon. For you. Shall I read it now?”

“I guess.” Any more words than that and Xander would throw up. He clenched his jaw tightly.

William’s frown reappeared for a moment. Then he pulled out his glasses and put them on, cleared his throat, and began to read:

 _“Like a candle in a darkened room,_

 _Like water falls on drought-parch’d soil,_

 _Like life into a mould’ring tomb,_

 _Like peaceful leisure after toil,_

 _Like cheer and joy, lifting gloom,_

 _Like heaven after the mortal coil;_

 

 _Like hope when all one’s known is fear,_

 _Like calming breezes, not tempest toss’d,_

 _He came into my life this year._

 _And lands and oceans he has cross’d._

 _He’s my beloved, heart-held dear._

 _Without my Xander, I should be lost.”_

 

Xander’s heart shattered into a million jagged shards.

William carefully folded the paper back into quarters and tucked it away, and he slipped his glasses off his face and into a pocket. He looked up at Xander, his face nearly glowing with hope and trust, with expectation and love.

And Xander broke him.

Xander laughed. It wasn’t his laugh, but he knew how to do it, because he’d heard it before: when he’d brought home a sheet of blue construction paper, painstakingly decorated with macaroni noodles in the shape of a necktie, with the words “HaPy FatHHrs DAY” carefully written above in white crayon. When he’d tried to recite his lines in the second grade play—Xander had played the coveted part of the Christmas mouse—and he’d stuttered and forgotten what to say until the teacher prompted him from offstage. When nobody at all had shown up for his birthday party in fourth grade, not even Willow, who was out of town, or Jesse, who had the flu. When he’d had to repeat algebra. When he’d been fired from his zillionth soulless, miserable job and was about to be late with the rent. And a thousand other times. The laugh, cruel and completely devoid of humor, hurt twice as much coming out of his own throat as it had any time he’d heard it from his father’s.

William’s small, proud smile wavered, then disappeared, and his brows drew together in confusion. “Xander?” he whispered.

Loudly, because by now several people had turned to watch, Xander announced: “That was the biggest, most steaming pile of shit I’ve heard in my life.”

All the blood drained from William’s face, all at once, like someone had pulled a plug. “X-Xander?” he repeated, even more softly.

“How can you _write_ something that putrid? Why would you _want_ to? And how in the holy hell do you think that…that garbage is going to appeal to me?” Half the other patrons were listening now, mouths hanging open.

“But…but…I thought….”

“You thought what? That you could recite that drivel at me and I’d fall madly in love with you? That’s disgusting.”

Now William’s face was suddenly bright red. “But you said—”

“What? That I _loooove_ you? I was trying to get into your pants, idiot. And it worked, didn’t it? You just bent over and begged me for it, like a slut.”

William’s mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish in a bucket, like a dying man gasping for air. His hands were on the table and they were shaking violently, as if he had a terrible fever. He made a terrible keening noise. “You—you—Xander, you—”

“I used you. Get it? Got you to pay for everything _and_ put out, and now I can go back home to California and tell everyone how easy you people are. How you all—well, you, anyway, I dunno about the rest of the country—will fall for any old line, for tricks that were old back in the days of Moses.” He injected a false note of pity into his voice, every word tasting like the poison it was. “You really believed I was falling for you, didn’t you? Man, as if! You’re beneath me, William Pratt.”

The entire restaurant went deathly silent.

With his jaw clenched tight and his eyes shining with unshed tears, William Pratt slowly stood. He nodded, just once, and pulled out a few coins from his pocket. He dropped them onto the table with a clatter that seemed deafening; one rolled off and onto the wooden floor, but he made no move to retrieve it. With stiff, jerky movements he walked to the front of the restaurant. He bashed into a table or two as he went, and almost bounced off a very tall, round man with coal-black mutton-chop sideburns, but he paid no mind to any of it. He didn’t even stop to grab his overcoat and hat; and then he was out the door, into the night.

Xander just sat there for a moment or two, feeling on his skin the weight of all those stares. He was breathing hard as if he’d just run a distance uphill, and suddenly he knew he was about to be very, very sick.

He lurched through the crowd—more jostling, one toppled chair, who the fuck cared?—and outside. He just barely made it around the corner of the building before he was holding onto the rough brick for dear life and puking up that good dinner and all that wine and beer.

When he’d retched himself empty, he sagged against the wall and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Looking up, he caught just a glimpse of a not-very-tall man in a navy frock coat staggering slightly up the sidewalk, nearly two blocks away. The figure was heading away from the theater and the waiting carriage and the crowds, towards darker, emptier streets.

Xander ran after him.

Even as he ran, Xander didn’t know what he intended to do when he caught him. Take it all back? Try to explain? He didn’t know, didn’t _think_ —he just ran.

William turned a corner and then another. He didn’t seem to have any destination in mind, and Xander wasn’t sure he had any sense at all of where he was or where he was going. Then William turned again and Xander lost sight of him for a few seconds. When Xander rounded that corner, William was standing on a nearly deserted street, talking with a thin woman. He seemed agitated, but even as Xander watched, William’s movements slowed and he nodded his head. The woman grabbed him by the shoulders and brought her face up close to his. William stiffened and cried out, and then went limp.

Xander didn’t realize he’d continued to walk closer, not until Drusilla lowered William’s still body to the ground and smiled over at Xander. She stuck out a sharp tongue and licked a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “He’s sweet as honey, our boy,” she said.

Xander looked down at a sight he’d seen so many times before: a corpse, ashy pale, with a crimson mouth and wide-open, sightless eyes, and two holes in the neck. But never before had it been the corpse of the man he loved. “You killed him,” he said, because what else was there to say. He wasn’t crying. Tears were reserved for the living, weren’t they? And he was deader than William.

“I’ve only borrowed him for a little while, kitten. Only a century or two. Like a blink of an eye. Only one eye of course!”

All his strength evaporated and Xander fell to his knees, dirtying his beautiful suit on the filthy pavement. He looked up at Drusilla like a supplicant. “Kill me. Kill me, too.”

She laughed, a lovely, trilling sound. “You with your tricks! Can’t kill the dead, can I? And I mustn’t be greedy—Daddy doesn’t like a greedy little girl.” She hugged herself in happiness. “Oh, we shall have such fun, my new pet and I. He is such a pretty pet, so needy, his heart so waiting to be eaten, like a party treat.” And she smacked her lips.

“God!” was all Xander could say. He reached out towards William’s body.

But Drusilla hissed at him and lifted the corpse into her arms as lightly as if it were made of papier-mache. “No touching, not anymore, not now. You go back where you belong. The fishes are calling you, kitten, singing you their songs. It’s not your time to play.”

And with a swirl of her skirts she was gone, and so was William.

Xander remained on his knees, and when even that was too much, he fell forward, palms flat against slick stone. In a voice so quiet even he couldn’t hear it, he said the magic word.

[Chapter Twelve](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/222195.html)


	12. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[50kinkyways](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/50kinkyways), [angst_bingo](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/angst_bingo), [memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori), [spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike%2Fxander)  
  
  
---|---  
  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:** : 12 of 12  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 **Thank you for reading! This final chapter will be followed by some of my notes. They're completely optional, but you might enjoy them if you like trivia.**

 

 _  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (12/12)**   
_

**Twelve**

 

Maybe this was hell, Xander thought.

He hadn’t used to think so. He used to like the island, actually. Sure, it wasn’t very exciting and he was kind of lonely, but he’d felt at peace there.

Now, everywhere he went—and there weren’t many places he could go—he was haunted by William. If he went outside, if he even looked out a window, there was the ocean, all blues and grays like William’s eyes. If he stayed inside, he could hear the waves sibilant against the rocks, calling “Sssspike…Ssssspike…” night and day. The cries of the gulls circling overhead were like the sound William had made when Xander betrayed him, so lost, so lost.

Everything Xander ate tasted like ashes and so he stopped eating at all, but that didn’t matter because it wasn’t as if he could starve himself to death.

He didn’t know how long he’d been gone. If the island’s other residents had noticed his absence, they didn’t mention it. They only nodded at him when he passed them during the rare times he emerged from his cottage. The Andersons offered him fruits and vegetables and, when he politely refused, they left them on his porch. He threw the produce away.

He supposed everything had turned out all right, as far as apocalypse aversion went. It wasn’t as if they had the daily news delivered to the island, and the entire business of changing timelines made his head hurt. But he figured the Andersons and Marianne Dhillon were still there, and Vern and Sam and Giulia and the others, and that probably meant the First hadn’t defeated Buffy back around the turn of the millennium. Heck, Kat and Scott hadn’t even been born when Sunnydale collapsed, and if those hordes of Neanderthal vamps had got loose on the earth, those two never would have been born, and then they wouldn’t have died, and they wouldn’t be on the island.

If you squinted your eyes and looked at it just right, you could even say that Xander had helped save the world, sort of.

But Xander didn’t feel like a hero.

He was bereft, despairing, riddled with guilt.

After a while, the others coaxed him out with little projects. A few loose shingles here, a desire for a larger porch there. Xander didn’t mind. But he wasn’t able to lose himself in the work as he’d always been able to before. Even as he hammered and sawed, he saw William’s face before him, just after William had finished reading him that stupid poem; and he saw William’s corpse lying in the dirt at Drusilla’s feet, the spark of him so clearly gone. But Xander kept moving, mechanical, empty, until he was certain he knew exactly how the Buffybot had felt.

 

***

 

“I’ve decided I want chickens.”

Xander stood in the doorway of his cottage and scratched the back of his neck. “Um, okay. Congratulations.”

“When I was, like, alive, I always thought it’d be cool to have chickens. Not to eat. I was mostly a veggie. But for fresh eggs, you know? And anyway, chickens are kinda cute, and there are all these breeds you can get, like ones that look like Hostess Snowballs. You know, those coconut things?”

“I am well acquainted with the entire Hostess family, Kat. But I’m not sure why you’re sharing this exciting information with me.”

She huffed impatiently at him and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t quite pretty—her face was too thin and her chin too small—but she had nice green eyes, and she changed the color of her hair frequently, which was interesting. Today it was hot pink. “If I’m gonna have chickens, I need a coop, don’t I? Else they’re gonna—I dunno—flap themselves off a cliff or something. Or get eaten by something. You suppose there are predators here?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, will you build me one?”

“A chicken predator?”

She punched him in the shoulder, not especially lightly. “A chicken coop, moron.”

“Sure, why not?”

The next day, a small pile of lumber and other supplies appeared outside her pale green cottage. Xander had no idea where it came from, any more than he knew where their food and all the other stuff came from. Just whenever an island resident wanted something, at least something within reason, there it was. Pretty nifty. He supposed that Kat’s chickens would magically show up, too, once the coop was ready.

It was a fine day, as it always was on the island. Xander almost enjoyed himself as he planned and measured. He decided to make it a fancy chicken house. Why not? He had the time, and he figured the chickens deserved their little bit of not-heaven too. So running water, he thought, and a solar powered door that would automatically open at sunrise, and lots of ventilation and windows as well, so the birds could have a room with a view. He thought he might make the entire structure look like a smaller replica of Kat’s house. No building permits needed; no zoning ordinances in the afterlife.

He worked until the sun set and his muscles were pleasantly achy. Kat watched some of the time, and some of the others stopped by now and then. Xander at work was major entertainment by island standards. When it was too dark to see what he was doing, he headed back to his cottage and, for the first time since he’d returned, took a long, hot bath. He didn’t even need to haul pots of heated water up three flights of stairs, he thought with a pang. After the bath eased the kinks from his body, he stretched out on his couch and watched a couple episodes of _Six Feet Under_ ,a TV show he’d liked a few decades ago. Which, he supposed, was almost a good description of him, except he’d been very clear to Willow and Dawn that he wanted to be cremated. That meant he was nothing but ashes now. Hmm.

Thinking of burials, though, inevitably got him thinking of William. Had Drusilla stuck him in the dirt after she took him away? Was he frightened when he woke up, dead and demoned? Did Dru comfort him? Did Angelus and Darla make the newly risen vampire miserable?

Stupid things to be dwelling on, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. He could still feel William in his arms, still taste him.

Sitting on his couch with rain pouring down outside, Xander sobbed until his throat was raw.

 

***

 

The island’s entire population stood in a small cluster, looking approvingly at Kat’s chicken coop. Xander had to admit it looked pretty good. It was an exact scale replica of Kat’s cottage, except for the color. She’d insisted on painting the exterior herself, and while her cottage was a soft seafoam green, the coop sported a riot of colors. Kat had crafted murals that were sort of psychedelic versions of famous paintings—Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Washington Crossing the Delaware, The Scream—all featuring chickens instead of people. Jose had already asked Kat if she’d paint the sides of his house too, and Bev Anderson had recruited Xander to build her a gardening shed styled after the Guggenheim. That was definitely going to be a challenge, but he was looking forward to it.

“I wonder if the chickens will come?” Melinda Dhillon said thoughtfully.

Xander grinned. “Hey, if I build it, they will come.”

Somebody groaned and everyone else chuckled good-naturedly.

“Excuse me?” came a hesitant voice from behind them, and they all turned around to see a middle-aged woman, kind of dumpy and dowdy looking, with a frizzy gray-black bob and a denim jumper dress and a saggy, pilled orange cardigan, the type that looked like it was probably more cat-hair than yarn. She wore reading glasses on a chain around her neck and her feet were bare.

“Eileen!” Vern cried, and he was running towards her, arms held out. The two of them crashed into a hard and tearful embrace.

Everyone else stood watching, happy for Vern, of course, but a little envious. Standing next to Xander, Giulia emitted a bittersweet sigh.

“Eileen, what happened?” Vern said, laughing and crying at the same time. “There wasn’t too much pain, was there?”

“Hardly any at all, sweetheart. It was very fast. It was very silly of me, really. I tripped over Virginia Woolf and fell down the stairs. I hope poor Veronica wasn’t too distressed when she found the body.”

“Virginia Woolf?” Xander whispered in confusion.

Giulia poked him. “Their Siamese,” she whispered back.

“Oh.”

Vern and Eileen continued to hold one another tightly, and after a minute or two their bodies wavered as if they were a heat mirage. Vern separated himself from his wife long enough to turn back and give everyone a smile and a little wave, and then _poof_! They were gone.

The island’s remaining residents all sighed in unison, then slowly wandered away. The Andersons went hand in hand.

 

***

 

Two days later, Xander stood on the Andersons’ porch, sketching out rough plans for the Guggenshed. Art Anderson had found a book on his shelf that had big, glossy photos of architectural marvels, and the picture of the museum was helping a lot. Kat had just come running up a few minutes earlier, announced breathlessly that her chickens were there, and zoomed back home.

“I wonder,” Bev said, staring dreamily into space. “Could I maybe do a tile mosaic on the outside when it’s built?”

Xander had a flash of memory: the intricate ceiling of The Criterion and his last meal with William. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbled, and Bev and Art gave him questioning looks, which he ignored.

He was about to ask about some of the interior specs when Art tapped his shoulder. “Look.”

Xander’s heart began to beat wildly as he spun around. But it was only a stranger making his slow way down the sandy path. He was a kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with straight black hair hanging in his face. His board shorts hung down over skinny brown legs, and his t-shirt advertised a band that Xander vaguely remembered having been popular twenty years before he died. He carried a beat-up skateboard under one arm.

“Hey,” the kid said, ambling towards them.

“Hi,” said Xander and the Andersons in unison.

“I’m Jak—with no ‘c’. Just J-A-K.”

“Jak with no c, I’m Xander. Also with no c. This is Bev and Art.”

Jak nodded at them, then scrunched his face a little sheepishly. “I wrecked my car. It was this classic Mustang, really sweet, but I took a corner too fast.”

“That sucks,” Xander said.

Jak nodded. “I wonder if Bailey’s gonna be able to save the car. Once they scrape out all my guts and stuff, I mean. No use wrecking a good ride, ya know?”

“That would be a shame,” Bev agreed.

A thought occurred to Xander. “Hey, Jak, what year were you born?”

“Nineteen ninety-five. Why?”

“Do you remember hearing about a town called Sunnydale, California?”

“Sure. My parents took us there on a road trip when I was, like, twelve. It’s supposed to be a big deal, I guess, but it’s really only a ginormous hole in the ground. Magic Mountain was way more fun.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” But Xander felt enormous relief at learning that whatever else his actions in 1880 had done, it sounded as if the world saveage at least had been successful.

Jak shifted his feet a little uncomfortably. “So, um…I guess I gotta wait for Bailey. We’re tight; like he’s a brother. But it might be a while. He’s a better driver than me.”

“That house down at the other end is vacant,” Bev said, pointing. “You can move right on in.”

“Cool!” Jak looked around, then out at the ocean. “I wonder if I could find a longboard somewhere?” And, with a small wave, he wandered off.

Art watched him go. “He seems nice. It’s too bad when they die so young, though. He’ll probably have to wait quite some time, too.”

Xander must have made a noise, because Bev gave his arm a little pet. “Someone will come along for you, honey.”

“How do you know that? Everyone else knows who they’re waiting for. Mr. No-C there just arrived and _he_ knows. But I don’t have a clue. Maybe nobody’s coming for me. Maybe I just stay here for eternity, fixing things and building things, watching everyone else come and go. Maybe it’s my punishment for…for things I’ve done.” His voice had risen almost to a shout, which made him feel bad. He liked the Andersons.

But Bev only patted him again. “You’re a good man, Xander. It’ll be all right.”

He smiled weakly at her and bent back over his building plans.

 

***

 

After the garden shed, Xander added a bay window to Giulia’s living room, with a built-in window seat so she could sit and read and look out at the sea. Sam wanted an updated kitchen, so Xander did that too. And then Scott wanted a bigger shower, the kind with lots of showerheads sticking out all over; but then his dog showed up, barking and wagging, and the new guy—Carl (cirrhosis)—wanted a whirlpool tub instead. No problem. Then, finally, Xander built something for himself: a small gazebo he placed about a half mile from his house, up on a little grassy hill where he liked to sit and not think.

And that’s what he was doing this fine afternoon, sitting and not thinking, half-dozing really, with his head tipped up towards the wooden slats of the roof and his eyes closed. So he didn’t see the person approaching, and the grass on the hill was really thick and springy, so he didn’t hear him either. The first indication he had that he wasn’t alone was the smell of cigarette smoke, a scent he hadn’t encountered since cigarettes were banned in the ‘20s.

Xander opened his eyes just as his visitor climbed the step into the gazebo, heavy boots clomping loudly on the planks.

And then Xander forgot how to breathe.

“Strangest bloody thing,” Spike said—and it was Spike, not William, complete with day-glo hair and scarred eyebrow and black duster and all—and he sat down on the small seat opposite Xander. “Few months back, I had this dream. Really vivid dream, tastes and all, yeah? I dreamt that I—that William Pratt met an odd bloke named Xander Harris. That William fell for this bloke, good and hard. Lost his sodding cherry to him. And then Xander was cruel to poor William, crueler than Angelus himself would ever be, really. And William died and rose again. Some dream, innit?”

Xander fought desperately to say something—anything!—but all he managed was a choked grunt.

Spike didn’t seem to notice. He stubbed his cigarette butt out with one foot, reached into his coat, and removed a pack of the things and a lighter. He shook one out, lit it, and shoved the pack and the lighter back in his pocket. He inhaled deeply then exhaled, sending a plume of smoke upward.

“This dream, it haunted me. Couldn’t think of anything else. And the more I thought of it, the more real it became, and the more details I remembered. Like how soft his hair was, and how calloused his palms were, bits of rough skin catching on me when he touched me. How he laughed so loudly when we went to a pantomime, and he made terrible faces when I made him eat escargot, and the way the poor sod was incapable of tying his own bloody ties.

“Soon, that dream became more real to me than reality. Other things I’d recalled—that twice-damned Cecily scorning me, those berks at the party—those faded, as if _they_ were the dream.”

Xander finally got his throat and lips to work, even if the rest of him was still paralyzed. “Spike, I—”

“I got so confused, all these things whirling in my head. It was nearly as bad as when I got my soul back. I knew you were dead—visited your grave myself—so I went searching for Dru, thinking perhaps she had an answer for me. Found her in bloody Valentine, Nebraska of all places, shacked up with a Cothos demon. Barmy as ever.”

He paused and took a few more puffs. He wasn’t looking at Xander, but instead at some indeterminate spot a few feet over Xander’s left shoulder. A few more puffs and that cigarette was gone, too, but he didn’t light another.

“I asked Dru about the night she turned me. Took ages to get a straight answer out of her of course, all that nattering on about pixies and fishes and moonbeams and whatnot. But eventually she told me what happened that night. Actually, she said, ‘Your kitten was crying for you on the street, all tears in both eyes,’ but I sussed out what she meant. You were there.”

All Xander could do was nod twice.

Spike nodded back and sucked in his lips. “Couldn’t get any more out of the old girl after that. Was afraid I was going to have to stake her, but her Cothos showed me she’d been eating cattle lately instead of humans, and my soul could live with that. Or not live, as the case might be.

“After that I looked up your witch. Wasn’t she surprised to see me! She’s happy, you know, with her wife and their kid. Just had a grandson born. Alexander Rupert.” He snorted out a laugh. “Lucky for him wasn’t the other way ‘round, yeah?”

Willow a grandma. Under other circumstances that would have rocked Xander’s world. Now it was just static, though.

Spike leaned back a little, resting against one of the gazebo pillars. “Red did some digging about. Loads of spells and all that. She had me do a bit of creative questioning of some wizard types as well, and that was a bit of fun. I nicked a few of Angelus’s old tricks. But in the end we learned that they’d sent you back to 1880, and you were meant to keep me alive and away from Dru. Didn’t work out, though, did it? You bollocksed up their scheme pretty nicely.”

He seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, but what he got was pretty inane. “You’re not burning,” Xander said, because he’d just noticed the way shafts of sunlight were falling through the open walls of the gazebo, illuminating Spike’s hair and skin, and Spike only seemed to be basking in them. “Are you dead, Spike?”

Spike stood and walked slowly around the gazebo, examining the details, stroking a few of the decoratively carved columns. “’S meant to look like the Lyceum, innit?”

“Pretty much. Spike, are you _dead_?”

“You know I am. Saw it yourself, didn’t you?”

“I mean _really_ dead. Dust.”

Spike turned around so he was facing the ocean. “He loved me, he loved me not,” he whispered. “What was truth and what was a lie, Xander?”

“I…when I first went there, I thought Willow had sent me. One of those bad guys impersonated Dawnie. It wasn’t…I was there a while before I realized what was really going on. Hal—Cecily told me, actually. I always was a little slow on the uptake.”

“And then?”

“I couldn’t let the First win, Spike. I just couldn’t. I— God, what I did, it would’ve killed me if I wasn’t dead already.”

Spike still hadn’t turned to face him. “You told me—you told William once that you’d love him until your last seconds on earth. Was that true?”

Xander licked lips gone suddenly very dry. “No.”

Spike remained where he was, but he seemed to slump in on himself. Xander stood on shaky legs and walked the few steps across the floor. It needed sanding—he’d ended up with a splinter in his toe the other day. Very close behind Spike, he said, “I kept on loving him after that. I still do.”

He could hear Spike breathe in and out, and he realized Spike’s skin was _warm_ , hot almost, and not from those stray sunbeams. Suddenly, Spike spun around and they were face to face; Spike looked furious, but Xander didn’t step back. “How could you love that…that weak, simpering _idiot_?” Spike roared.

With all the calm of absolute certainty, Xander said, “I did. I do.”

Spike searched Xander’s eyes for what seemed likes hours, and all the rage melted from his face to be replaced with wonder. “You really did love him.”

“Told you. Still do. What I did that night…. I’d rather have torn out my own heart and had it for breakfast. It _hurt_ , Wi—Spike. Worse than when I lost my goddamn eye, worse than dying.”

Softly now, Spike said, “Sometimes a hero must make sacrifices for the greater good.”

“Thanks, Spock, but I’m no hero. You’re the— _William_ ’s the one who died that night. I killed him.”

“Git. The poncy sod would have died soon enough. Hell, he never really lived until you arrived anyway. You didn’t kill him, Xander—you gave me a century and a half more of life.”

“So…you forgive me?”

“I was never angry over the bit with Dru, only the bit that came before. What you said that night.”

“I’m sorry,” Xander breathed, now so close to Spike they were only a hair’s breadth from touching. “God, you have no idea—”

“I know a thing or two about regrets,” Spike interrupted, his mouth quirked into an almost-smile. But then, just as Xander was sure they would kiss, Spike took a few steps away and shook his head. “You love William Pratt. I’m not him—he died in Dru’s arms.”

“Not really.” Xander closed the space between them again. “You call him all those names, but I saw so much of you in him. Or him in you. Not sure which—it’s a little confusing. But you—both of you—you’re smart and funny and brave…and sexy. Oh fuck, so goddamned sexy. And you have this energy. And you’re kind of impulsive and moody. The best weeks of my whole fucking life were after I was dead, when I was with you in cold, dirty London. And love. Heart like a trap, you know? The way you loved Dru and Buffy….”

Xander reached for Spike, but Spike stepped nimbly away and turned so Xander saw him only in profile. “I remembered that I loved you,” Spike said quietly. “That I’d loved you for 150 years, and my heart, my soul _knew_ it, even if my mind had forgotten, or even if it had never been true. A century and a half of yearning, Xander, of wanting, needing….” His voice broke; and Xander stood there, waiting, because he owed the guy that much at least.

“I couldn’t…. Everyone’s gone, and I’ve nobody and…. Couldn’t bear it, not any longer. Had to see. Had to know if perhaps I might….”

Xander got a sick feeling in his stomach, knowing what was coming next.

Spike fumbled in his duster for a moment as if he intended to get another cigarette, and then let his hands drop, still empty. “It was just an ordinary brawl. Pair of bloody Fyarls. Offed one of them straight away but the other…I expect he was a bit faster than me. I still killed the bastard, but I was lying in an alley, all torn up. Could have crawled somewhere for some shelter, I reckon. But I didn’t. Just stayed and watched the sun rise.”

“Oh, Spike,” Xander moaned.

Spike shook it away and grabbed Xander’s shoulders hard, fingers digging into skin and muscle. “So now I can have the answer, can’t I? Do you reckon you could…could you ever feel about me the way you felt for him?” Spike asked. He looked so vulnerable, so human, so…so William.

“I already do,” Xander replied, again with the incontrovertible truth.

Spike’s face crumpled. His hands released their grip and Xander folded him into his arms. Spike clutched him right back. They were both crying, in Xander’s case so much that the gazebo and the landscape looked all blurred and fuzzy. But he didn’t care because he felt so good, so right. So complete.

“Xan?” Spike whispered.

And that’s when Xander realized the waviness of his surroundings wasn’t due to teary eyes. A warmth settled over him—over Spike too—and a feeling of absolute peace and joy. He was suddenly certain that something wonderful was waiting just around the corner, and all they had to do was let themselves go.

“Love?” Spike said, not loosening their embrace one bit.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

Xander was dizzy, like when he’d been a kid and had too much sugar and caffeine at Disneyland and then went on Space Mountain. It was fantastic. He and Spike spun together and the island dropped away, became smaller and smaller, while in front of them, oh, in front of them….

Their waiting was over. Their journey together had just begun.

 

~~~fin~~~

[For optional notes on the story, please click here.](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/222221.html)

 

 

  
  



	13. </strong> Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

[memento mori](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/memento%20mori)  
  
---|---  
  
**Title:**  Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento   
 **Chapter:**  Notes  
 **Pairing:**  Xander/William  
 **Rating:**  NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:**  I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** In order to save the world, Xander must travel back in time and make sure that William becomes Spike.  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/profile)[**fall_for_sx**](http://community.livejournal.com/fall_for_sx/)  and incorporating the [](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/profile)[**50kinkyways**](http://community.livejournal.com/50kinkyways/)  prompt "virgin" and the [](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/profile)[**angst_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/angst_bingo/)  prompt "betrayal." **Many** thanks to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)  for the gorgeous banner and matching icon, to [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful beta work, and to [](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**lil_coyote**](http://lil-coyote.livejournal.com/)  for even more great icons!

Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Memento%20Mori%3A%20Hominem%20Te%20Memento&filter=all).

 **These notes are purely optional, but they contain some trivia on some of the historical details and other odds and ends.**

  


_  
**Memento Mori: Hominem Te Memento (Notes)**   
_

**  
Notes for Memento Mori  
**

 

About the title:   
[  
__](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori)

Memento mori

  
  
means, literally, “remember you will die.” It’s also an art genre in which the art is intended to remind people of their mortality.   
_Hominem te memento_ means “remember you are only a man,” and, reportedly, servants would say that to triumphant Roman generals to keep them humble.

 

 **  
Chapter One:  
**

The inspiration for this story, especially for the opening chapter, came when I spent the weekend at the   
[](http://www.pointarenalighthouse.com/)

Pt. Arena light station

  
. The light station’s actually on a thin peninsula, not an island, but that’s where the idea came from.

Lodi is in the San Joaquin Valley, about 45 minutes south of Sacramento. They grow wine grapes there, and it’s the same Lodi as in the Creedence Clearwater song. Highway 99 is only 2 lanes there, and full of semis.

 

 **  
Chapter Two:  
**

The air in London was terrible in the nineteenth century due to coal burning. Periodically there were especially lethal   
[](http://www.victorianlondon.org/weather/londonfogs.htm)

London fogs

  
. There was one in 1880, as a matter of fact, which killed between 2000 and 11,000 people.

I took a little creative license with the fashions here—bustles were actually not worn between 1875 and 1883. Beards, however, really were very popular in 1880, as were mustaches. The safety razor had yet to be invented and most men went to the barber for shaves.

The Pratts live just around the block from the British Museum. I was looking at   
[](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloomsbury_Street_London.jpg)

this picture

  
when I described their house, although number 43 isn’t actually shown there.

Xander’s mistaken—there was indoor plumbing in 1880, at least among the middle and upper classes. Not hot running water, though.

Around this time in England blue and white porcelain was very popular. They called it   
[](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129406482)

Chinamania

  
.

Terza rima is a rhyme scheme like this:   
A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D.

 

 **  
Chapter Three:  
**

St. Thomas’ Hospital has existed since the 12th Century.

I don’t know why, but Americans and the British number building floors differently. In the US, the ground floor is called that or the 1st floor, and the one above it is the 2nd floor. In the UK, the ground floor is the ground floor and the one above it is the 1st floor. I have no idea what the rest of the world does.

There were several cholera epidemics in London in the 19th Century due to poor sanitation. In the 1853-54 epidemic, over 10,000 people died.

Actually, I don’t believe solicitors belonged to the Inns of Court—only barristers. Maybe William’s exaggerating.

 _  
Huckleberry Finn  
_  
was first published in 1884. But Mrs. Pratt might well have been familiar with _Tom Sawyer_ or some of Twain’s other works. And Twain—or Samuel Clemens—did spend time in California. He was a journalist in Sacramento for a time, and of course the _Jumping Frog of Calaveras County_ is set in California. In the next county over, Tuolomne County, there’s a town today named Twain Harte, after him and Bret Harte.

 

 **  
Chapter Four  
**

Toothbrushes in 1880 were made of wood or bone, and the bristles were pig or badger. I’m with Xander: ick.

I think Xander would look very sharp in a Homburg.   
[](http://www.facebook.com/nicholasbrendon?v=photos&ref=ts#!/photo.php?pid=7036816&id=314542040319&ref=fbx_album)

See?

 

 **  
Chapter Five  
**

Victorians often did have photos taken of dead relatives, and frequently the bodies were posed in lifelike ways. If you Google “Victorian post-mortem photographs” you can find quite a few online.

Child mortality rates were very high, even among the middle class, so Mrs. Pratt’s situation wouldn’t be unusual. Typhus was also a major cause of death. It was spread by lice.

Homosexuality was illegal in England in 1880, although it wasn’t a capital offense any more (that had changed in 1861). The term “homosexual” itself wasn’t widely in use until after 1886.

 

 **  
Chapter Six  
**

The British Museum was founded a century before William was born. The Reading Room was built in 1857. It’s gorgeous. Two of the exhibits Xander saw in the 21st century that wouldn’t have been the museum in William’s time are the ship from Sutton Hoo, which dates from about the 8th century and was dug up in 1939, and the Lyndow Man, who died almost 2000 years ago and was discovered in a peat bog in 1984.

The collapsible top hat, also called a Ginus hat after its inventor, was intended to make storing the hats easier at operas and other events.

The Opera Comique theater was built in 1870 and demolished in 1902. It was mostly underground and reached through long tunnels and a steep set of stairs.

Xander may be having special trouble understanding the costermongers if they’re speaking rhyming slang or back slang. In back slang, the words are, more or less, spoken backwards.

 _  
Pirates of Penzance  
_  
debuted in London at the Opera Comique in 1880, where it was very successful. William is singing a part of the refrain from the song “Pirate King.” Personally, I think Kevin Kline made a very fine pirate king, but I’d sure enjoy seeing James Marsters perform that part!

Cremorne Gardens were pleasure gardens from 1845 to 1877. There was dancing there and other entertainments and, reportedly, prostitution and other vices.

Coffeehouses became popular in England in the 17th century and they were popular meeting places. Eventually, though, the more well-off men began to meet in gentleman’s clubs instead. Many of the coffeehouses were alcohol-free, but where’s the fun in that?

William quotes from three poems in this chapter: Shelley’s   
[  
__](http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/skilton/poetry/shell01.html)

Peter Bell, the Third

  
  
; Blake’s   
[  
__](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=172929)

London

  
  
; and Wordsworth’s   
[  
__](http://www.logoslibrary.org/wordsworth/sun.html)

The Sun Has Long Been Set

  
  
. He also calls Xander a “glock,” which was Cockney slang for a half-wit.

 

 **  
Chapter Seven  
**

William’s bad poem is my own original terrible creation. Writing bad poetry is so much fun!

 

 

 **  
Chapter Eight  
**

Macassar oil was used as a hair conditioner. But when men sat down, their hair would make the backs of upholstered chairs greasy, so people would place crocheted doilies on chairs. They were called antimacassars.

 

 **  
Chapter Ten  
**

The Royal Observatory’s still there in Greenwich; it’s the spot from which Greenwich Mean Time originated. The orange ball is visible from the Thames and was a useful method for sailors to tell the time; the ball would drop at 1pm. It still does, except the one day I happened to be in Greenwich, when the ball didn’t budge. We just stood there in the rain, waiting.

Placentia Palace was built in the 15th century and demolished in the 17th. The Old Royal Naval College is there now. Henry VIII spent a lot of time there; the place where he’d dock his boat is still there along the Thames.

 

 **  
Chapter Eleven  
**

This chapter is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. It just killed me, knowing what I was going to make Xander do to William. It was really, really difficult to type those words.

Glomerulonephritis is a kidney disease that can be fatal.

The phantasmagoria was invented in the 18th century. Magic lanterns were used to project scary images.

By 1880, Jules Verne had published 20 books. I don’t know which one Xander bought William.

A landau was a luxurious carriage pulled by two or four horses.

The   
[](http://www.criterionrestaurant.com/)

Criterion Restaurant

  
still exists. I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen pictures of the interior.

The Lyceum Theatre still exists, too. The current building opened in 1834, although it was considerably remodeled after William’s time. Henry Irving was a prominent actor there. He was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula although, as far as I know, Irving was not a vampire. Stoker was a manager of the theater.

Again, William’s bad poem is mine.

 

 **  
Chapter Twelve  
**

My brother recently built a fancy chicken coop, but minus the murals. He and his wife intend on getting some   
[](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie)

silkies

  
.

 

  



End file.
